


Something Strange

by arkemisia



Series: Past Enduring [1]
Category: Borderlands
Genre: Gen, Kinda, Post-Game(s), Siren Rhys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-05-30 15:41:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 44,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6430435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arkemisia/pseuds/arkemisia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Continuation of events at the end of episode 5. Rhys and Fiona are teleported by the Vault of the Traveler and find themselves in... another Vault? But instead of finding the loot one would expect, they find a single chest... made of eridium?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Garden of Everything

**Author's Note:**

> GOD I am so bad at summaries. "blahblahblah ... ?!"
> 
> Just a head's up: The violence isn't too graphic (at least not yet) but I just wanted to be safe.

"Maybe this wasn't the best idea!" Vaughn shouted from his seat in Gortys' cockpit.

"Oh! You think?!" Sasha yelled back, holding tight to the console in front of her with her good arm as the whole space lurched to the side.

"How was I supposed to know using the beacon again would bring the storm back?" Vaughn retorted.

"Because that’s what happened the last two times?!" Athena near screamed from her position.

"Too late for that though, innit? Look there!" Janey called from her spot and pointed towards the ground.

"What the shit?" August breathed as all eyes fell to the center of the electric sandstorm and the two kneeling figures at its heart, the Vault door materializing behind them.

 

Violet bolts of lightning crackled all around them and Fiona wasn't sure how hard she was holding Rhys' shoulders. She'd lost all feeling in her fingers save for the tingling numbness lingering in them. Just in case, she tightened her grip as best she could. Or at least she tried to.

She winced as a new scream leaked through his clenched teeth; sudden violent quake overtook them, though she couldn’t tell if they were the ones shaking or the ground, but it only made her hold him tighter still. Violet light shone through his eyelids and what looked like cracks along the left side of his face, bathing the world around them in its hue.

Feeling the steadying, solid ground once again beneath her knees, she looked about at the storm around them and her eyebrows shot up, her mouth dropping open.

"Rhys! RHYS - we're here! We're back - it's okay!" she yelled over the cacophony of wind, thunder, and the company man's stifled cries. He slowly opened one of his eyes, the real one, blinking furiously through tears as he struggled to focus on her face.

Her face, bright and close, so close, enveloped in radiant light so bright it hurt to look at. Or rather, the light; the insidious light itself burned into his eyes, hurting him more than anything else. Screaming roared in his ears and in his skull and bones, vibrating, shaking, and threatening to burst. He shut his eyes again, screwing up his face as another wave of fire exploded from the base of his head and surged all over his body, making an extraordinarily hot circle around his port and in his eye.

Fiona was talking to him, saying something. But he couldn't hear her over the screaming. His own voice, lost in the dissonant chorus, sounded far away.

But she was talking. And her hands gripped his shoulders. Her hand on his left shoulder pinched the streams of the molten fires of agony that coursed all over his body, pressing it deeper into his skin there. Thousands of tiny needles tore at him in the wind, like his whole body was falling asleep; every breath tasted like acidic ash. Fiona shook him and a fresh ball of fire flared, surging down his neck.

She was talking to him and he had to open his eyes. Closing them didn't block out the light anyway but every stinging stab and jolt of electric pain drove them shut. He opened his eyes and saw her face in front of him and felt the pull at him, the sensation newly familiar, and all too unpleasant. Fiona’s smile disappeared in a flash, her eyes widening.

"No, no - not again!" she cried and he tried to shy away from the incessant tugging in every direction. "We're here!"

 

He opened his eyes and he saw her, smiling, the air still and clear around her, as she said "Well, it looks like we're here," quite calmly.

"Yea," Rhys said with a strangled laugh. He put his hand on his hips and looked around. "Wherever _here_ is." Moments ago they’d been in the Vault of the Traveler with its walls soaring high above their heads. They stood in a completely different room now. No, not a room. A cavern now gaped above them, rocky facades surrounding and enclosing them. "Did you know it was going to do that?" he asked, looking to Fiona at his side.

"Nuh-uh. I'm as clueless as you are, Hyperion," she replied liltingly.

"Again, former Hyperion," he quipped, just as easily.  She smiled and shrugged. He looked back behind them at the chest they’d just opened. Now it sat on a rock in the middle of an underground lake, instead of a raised dais in the Vault. "Think this is, uh, a part of the Vault?" he posited.

"Dunno. I was expecting significantly more things of the shiny variety in that box though," she said, casting her gaze about the cavern. Despite no obvious artificial light sources, the cavern walls glowed violet, illuminating the massive space and revealing otherworldly rocks, and vegetation. Rhys leaned forward, peering down into the water that surrounded them. He dipped the tip of his boot into the water and sent ripples cascading out along the surface.

"Maybe there’s some further inside?" he suggested and she shrugged again.

"Only one way to find out," she said, and brushed past him. She hopped down into the water, disappearing completely beneath the surface, save for her hat, and splashing Rhys on the way. He jumped back from the edge, making a face at his wet pants and then scowling at the floating hat. His grimace transformed slowly into a worried frown as only bubbles rose up to the surface, making the hat bob a bit.

"Fiona?" he called, "Fiona, that's not funny come on back up," he scolded and paused. He huffed a bit, his hands on his hips as he attempted to put on his most reprimanding face. "Fiona?" he called again, dropping his hands. He waited a bit longer before dropping to his knees at the edge of the rock and staring into the water. "Fiona!" he yelled, reaching into the water with sweeping strokes, his fingers grasping nothing but water.

Water exploded in his face and he launched himself backwards as Fiona breached the surface sputtering.

"That - was a lot deeper than I thought it would be," she remarked after a couple breaths. "Also awkwardly lukewarm and kinda tastes funny," she observed. Rhys gaped at her from where he sat with his back against the chest, clutching his heart.

"Please don't do that again," he said in a very small voice. She simply pursed her lips in a smirk as she paddled back over and donned her hat.

"Come on in; the water's fine," she urged. "Unless you're going to short circuit or something. Then we’re kind of out of luck here."

"No, no, I'm completely waterproof. Ish,” he replied and she regarded him expectantly. “Water can get stuck in my port and it makes really annoying sloshing... sounds? Feelings? I don't know, but it's like getting water stuck in your ear except a bazillion  times worse," he explained, rambling as he scooted towards the water, not quite getting up.

"I guess dunking you is out of the question then, huh?" Fiona quipped and he glared as he swung his legs over the edge.

"Yes, no dunking, thank you," he replied and stared at her. "Stop smiling like that; it's creepy," he griped but she just arched an eyebrow. He groaned and lowered himself into the water. "Euhhhhuhuhuh," he moaned with a shudder as he let go of the rock and floated up and down in the warm water. "Why is it so warm? It's like a giant bath tub." Fiona made a vague noncommittal response and started paddling away. With an uncomfortable whine, Rhys followed her.

They were nearing the shore when one of Rhys' feet hit something other than water. He yelped and catapulted himself forward, almost completely out of the water, and ahead of Fiona, plunging back into the water. He reemerged, coughing and flailing in the water.

"Something touched my foot! SOMETHING TOUCHED MY FOOT!" he squealed, "There's something in the water!" he cried, and began paddling furiously, with a startled Fiona close behind.

"Stop - splashing - so much!" she yelled in between spitting out mouthfuls of water. But another of Rhys’ kicks hit another solid, writhing object, and he was off.

"Oh my god, there's another one! It's infested! It's-"

"Seaweed, you scaredy cat!" Fiona shouted over the ruckus, but he was already tripping over himself, climbing out of the water. It wasn't until he fell forward to his hands and knees, gasping for breath that he looked at the gentle waves lapping at his wrists, and the layers upon layers of thick, purple seaweed with solid knob-like seeds the size of his fist, that he registered what she said.

"Oh," he muttered. Fiona patted him on the head as she waded past him with laborious steps. She was already ringing out her coat when he'd gotten to his feet and finally on shore. He ran a hand through his wet hair with a frown. "Great," he sighed with a shake of his head and quickly stopped, his face tight. Noticing his sudden freeze, Fiona stopped as well, her jacket half way shrugged back on.

"What is it?" she asked, but he didn't answer immediately. Very carefully, he tilted his head to the side and gave a slight shake. Immediately he scrunched his nose and grimaced.

"Oh you've got to be kidding me! I got water in my port!" he groaned, jerking his head to the side again several times forcibly, as if trying to dislodge the water. Fiona clapped a hand over her face.

"C'mon, you weirdo, dry off as best you can and let's go," she said and finished straightening her still wet, if no longer quite dripping, clothes. She walked over a little ways towards the cavern wall.

Vegetation of all shades of purple, some vines with lavender spotted leaves climbed the walls, others with deep purple bladed leaves lined the crevice where the ground met the walls. Jagged violet crystals peaked out from behind the leaves, interspersed with the flora throughout the cavern. She leaned a bit closer to one cluster. "Is that...?"

"Eridium?" Rhys finished, coming up alongside her. "Wow, yea, that's... a lot," he said, looking around at the glowing violet veins in the walls and floors. "Do you know how much this stuff costs?! We could make so much money if we could bring this back somehow! Wow," he exclaimed, no longer seeming to notice the water dripping from his hair and suit.

"Maybe we can set up a mining operation or something; just gotta figure out a way to prop the door open," Fiona wondered, before looking back to the lake. "Assuming we can _find_ the door again," she quantified.

"Oh, we're going to find the door. There is no way I'm getting stuck in here. Not after all we've been through," Rhys proclaimed and started walking along the path, his socks squelching slightly in his boots. "Besides, it just wouldn't be fair to never see Vaughn or Sasha or anybody else again,” he said with a pause and a glance at her out of the corner of his eye. “Not after you've given me your blessing and all," he said with a grin. Fiona rolled her eyes.

"You're never going to let me live that down are you?"

"Nnnope," he replied.

"I take it back," she announced.

"Too late; that's not how that works," he stated.

"It is, because it's _my_ blessing to bestow upon whomsoever I choose," she retorted. The edges of her lips curled up as she sent him a sidelong glance while they walked along the rough hewn path. "And I decided a grown man who squeals like a baby at some seaweed-"

"Oh no, don't you dare - please don't tell her about that," he sputtered in a rush.  

"Oh, I'm gonna tell her," she said, "though it's not like she's unfamiliar with your common acts of _heroism_ ," she added and Rhys could only groan.

The walls became increasingly bright as they walked farther along the path, the veins of eridium growing thicker and more prevalent.

"Huh," Rhys exclaimed after rounding another corner. "Would you take a look at that?"

Fiona whistled. The veins of eridium coalesced and led to a giant chest, nestled in an alcove in the wall. A chest which appeared to be made of eridium too.  

"Why would anyone make a chest out of eridium?" Rhys pondered aloud.

"Don't know. But if that's the _chest,_ just imagine how valuable whatever is _inside it_ must be!" Fiona said, the wonder clear in her voice. Rhys looked over to her to see her eyes practically glinting with glee, an eager smile spread across her face. She returned his stare before moving forward though. "Shall we?"

"Hold on a second, remember what happened last time we opened a strange, giant chest? Like a half hour ago? We got teleported who knows where," Rhys reminded.

"I know but come on, it's a giant glowing chest in an otherwise empty _vault_ ! We can't just _not_ open it," she replied, waving towards the chest. Rhys ran a hand through his hair again. It was starting to dry off and began curling oddly at the edges.

"I know, I know, let's just... let's just be careful okay. I'll try scanning it, and see if, I don't know, see if I can see any obvious tech or traps or something," he suggested and she crossed her arms.

"By all means," she said, waving him ahead. "You really think your ECHO eye will be able to read whatever it is though?"

"Doubtful,” he replied honestly. “But it's better than nothing right?" he said and she laughed. His golden eye pulsed and shone a bit brighter as he squinted, then opened his eyes wider and focused on the chest. "Let's see what we have here... scanning..." he muttered, as much for himself as for Fiona, as his ECHO eye flickered and changed modes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Okie dokie then. 
> 
> I apologize if my lore is a bit off; I've played Tales at least 3 1/2 times, the pre-sequel once, and just started BL2. 
> 
> If anybody wants to send me prompts (fluff would be appreciated as I've been writing mostly dramatic stuff and it's making me sad TT^TT quick disclaimer though: i have a rotten turn around rate) I'm over on tumblr with the [same username as here](http://arkemisia.tumblr.com/)! Drop me a line! 
> 
> Also huge shoutout to pagerunner's [To Crash Upon the Shore](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5482778/chapters/12668243) which made me fall in love with the Siren!Rhys AU in the first place. Go read it, if you haven't already!


	2. A Thousand Miles Away

"Scanning..." Rhys muttered as the blue haze filtered his view. The crosshair that served as the focal point of his vision darted around the chest but no matter where he looked strange hieroglyphics floated in the air. They weren't in menus or dialogue boxes; they swirled as if upon a breeze, though never getting too far from the chest like they were tethered there. "Well, that's not much help," he reported. 

"Nothing?" Fiona asked and he shrugged.

"It's... something but it's all weird and floaty, and in another language, I guess," he said. "Amazing I can see anything though wi-AHH!" he broke off with a sudden shout. Fiona jumped aside, at the ready, her wrist gun out in the blink of an eye. 

"What? What's wrong?!" she asked, but the searing pain in his temple rendered him as deaf as if cotton had suddenly been stuffed in his ears. He clutched at his skull as another stabbing pain, white hot and searing, jabbed into his head, into the port he vaguely realized. He tried to disable his echo eye, but it wouldn't respond.

"Echo... off! OFF!" he ordered but his blue filtered vision simply grew brighter. He looked back up at the chest; the letters were swirling faster now, a veritable unintelligible tornado, growing brighter and brighter, taking the shape of a sphere, rolling around and around as if going down a funnel. Until finally the letters spun in place before rolling over and surging forward, two hollow eyes and a gaping maw yawning at Rhys. He yelped and fell backward as it overtook him in a wave of immense heat. 

"Rhys! RHYS! What's wrong? What's happening? Talk to me!" Fiona begged, having fallen to her knees next to Rhys' writhing form. He jerked from side to side, his hands clawing at his face, and she watched, her features going slack, as violet light pulsed from the cybernetics in his head, and radiated out in steady, crackling lines down his face. 

It burned; liquid heat rushing through his veins, his implant running hotter than he could ever remember. Searing heat spider webbed down his neck, across his shoulder and chest, and down his arm. Up to the hand he held over his face, over his open mouth as he screamed, though he could not hear it. The cotton in his ears had turned to a roar, a million shouting voices, pulsing, as overwhelming as the sea in a storm. 

His vision was static in both eyes, purple and white snow replacing the blue. His entire body screamed, every nerve alive and dying. This was worse than his most terrible migraines, worse than when he'd pulled out his cybernetics to get rid of the AI ghost of Handsome Jack. Worse than anything he could ever have imagined as the heat pooled in virulent rivers along his left side. 

Fiona's eardrums vibrated with the volume of Rhys' hoarse screams as she gasped for breath. Tucking her gun back in her sleeve she grabbed at his hands, prying them away from the bleeding scratches he'd dug down his face, the blood finding the terrific violet tracks and following them down. In his addled state he thrashed with a violent ferocious strength she didn’t know he had and his longer limbs broke free from her grasp. She grabbed his shoulders instead, shaking him.

"RHYS! Snap out of it!" she cried but was met with a fresh keen of terror through clenched teeth. She desperately searched around for anything that might help. But there was nothing. Save for the chest. Her gaze went from the chest to Rhys, and back to the chest. Releasing one of his shoulders, she brought up her gun and did the only thing she could think of.

She shot the chest dead center. 

It unfolded into a million pieces and then everything went white. 

For a moment, everything was silent and still again. Rhys' mouth was wide open in a silent scream, his eyes, both cybernetic and organic glowed so brightly that they looked white with no cornea to be seen. The violet fissures in his skin gleamed hot and steam rolled off of him. 

And then it came back like a tidal wave. His back arched, his head snapping back and hitting the ground, and his jaw slammed shut. 

That's when she first felt it; as she held onto him for dear life, she felt the ground fall away and she tumbled head first onto him in the blinding nothingness.

Everything pulled at him, pulled at his skin, his mind, his bones, his memories. His edges felt fuzzy; he couldn't tell where he began and where he stopped; the light was everything. A vice pressed the fire against his arm, the normal one, like a red hot branding iron and he gasped through clenched teeth and heard her then. 

"RHYS-RHYS-you have to stop!" Fiona screamed from far away, but the iron cuff on his arm shook him and some of the static cleared away. He could see her face then, so close, enveloped in white and violet. He blinked and she was gone. Another face in front of him, all clever smiles and a flower tucked into a patterned hair scarf. Something rammed into him. Hit him in the back of the head and he gave an involuntary yelp of pain. No, she was hanging from his leg; she dropped, and he was thankful. No. No no no. That wasn't right. Something hit him again, a wave of hot, heavy pain all over his body. He blinked and suddenly he was surrounded by turrets, Gortys in his hands at the old Atlas facility.

A laugh filled his ears, above the din of the screams. The turrets fired. NO! Slam. Fiona beckoned him down in the midst of the smoke. They escaped below to the chagrin of the haunting hologram. He blinked and the pain in the back of his head exploded again, but Fiona was there again too, clutching him; her lips were moving but he couldn't hear her over the laughing, and the screaming. He felt it again. 

Fiona couldn't stifle the squeal as they went weightless again, bolts of violet electricity encircling them as the scenery changed. They landed on the dirty ground and a violet explosion sent shockwaves around them. A fire crackling in the night went out instantly and the disguised LoaderBot standing watch went toppling over. He shook himself and turned to look at them from the ground as the wind blasted around them, violet light lit up the night. With a jolt she shook Rhys' shoulders again, gripping tighter, and the ground fell away and LoaderBot was washed away in whiteness. 

  
  


Elsewhere, Vaughn bent down and smiled as he inspected the shield in his hands. "Sweet," he said to himself. He jumped a bit at the sound of gunfire at his elbow. He whirled around to see Sasha happily hefting a new gun with a bright grin. 

"This is too cool," she exclaimed, giggling with glee. "Holy crap, Fiona you gotta see this," she said, looking around. Vaughn's eyebrows went up as he too paused to search their surroundings. Athena and Janey hovered over separate items, but remained close, in each other’s orbit. August's tall form crouched closer to the ground inspecting something with his back turned to them. The robots chatted idly off to the side, Gortys once again in her diminutive spherical form, waving her arms at her sides in a little dance as she spoke just out of earshot. 

"Huh," Vaughn exhaled, his brows furrowing as he kept looking around the desolate valley. A few rocks dotted the landscape but overall there weren’t many places to hide. The single biggest feature on the horizon was the gargantuan Vault door looming in the distance with its otherworldly light shining through.

"Fiona?" Sasha called again, a bit louder, taking a tentative step away from the group.

"Hey, Rhys?" Vaughn called out too. Sasha and he briefly locked gazes and he saw the same rising concern mirrored in her eyes. In perfect synchronization, they turned towards the Vault door. 

Just in time to see it vanish. 

"Hey!" "Woah!" they exclaimed and sprinted towards where it had just been. 

"Rhys? Fiona?" they yelled, dashing past the others. August turned his head from the gun he’d been studying and threw a quizzical look after them, while Janey reached a hand out to touch Athena’s arm, inclining her chin in their direction. 

Vaughn and Sasha arrived at the spot the door had just occupied, breathless, but undeterred. No reply answered their calls. Vaughn cupped his hands around his mouth and kept shouting. 

"RHYS? Where are you, bro?" he asked, gloved hands dropping back to his sides as he sighed, eyes roving the landscape. 

Athena was the first to catch up with them, pulling up to an easy stop. 

"What's going on?" she demanded, not unkindly, looking from Vaughn to Sasha, who was still circling the spot the door had last been at. 

"We can't find Fiona or Rhys,” she explained quickly. “You don't think they were in there when - where did it go? It'll be right back, right? It's got to come back," the words came tumbling out of her mouth as she kept moving about the area.

"Vaults don't usually close on people, do they?" Vaughn asked. Athena shook her head with a shrug as Janey, August and the robots came up alongside them as well. 

"Where're Fiona and Rhys?" Janey asked. 

"Missing," Athena reported. 

"The Vault door's gone," August observed with a growl, taking a few heavy booted steps around the area, investigating. 

"We know, August,” Sasha snapped, her voice tight. “And right now we're trying to find my sister and - and Rhys, please, just... focus," Sasha's urged. He turned to look at her and narrowed his eyes.  

"This better not be another trick," he said after a moment, crossing his arms. 

"No, August," Sasha cried, throwing her gaze heavenwards momentarily. "My sister is missing - not conning you,” she said,  bringing her eyes back down to level with August. “This time,” she conceded with a conciliatory tilt of her head. “I swear," she added. He held her stare and arched an eyebrow. "Besides if we were conning you, don't you think I'd be the one gone with her and not Rhys?" she asked with another emphatic shake of her head.

"I don't know; just a thought. Fool me once, you know," he said with a shrug. 

"Guys, come on. Maybe they didn't go in the Vault; maybe they wandered off somewhere..." Vaughn suggested, looking around. "We should spread out and look." 

“That will not be necessary,” LoaderBot stated, stepping closer to the rest of the group, with Gortys puttering alongside him. “Gortys and I saw Fiona and Rhys enter the Vault. They appeared to engage in some sort of race to the entrance,” LoaderBot reported.

“Yea, it looked like a lot of fun!” Gortys exclaimed merrily. She leaned forward with a hand up to her face in a mimicry of hiding the movements of lips.”Even though Rhys cheated and got a head start, Fiona still won,” she relayed in a hushed whisper.

“Very much so,” LoaderBot agreed with a nod. “But they entered together,” he said.

“Oh crap,” Vaughn breathed, crossing his arms over his bare chest and bringing a hand up to his beard. 

“Maybe they’ll find their way back on their own,” Sasha suggested, but there was little conviction in her voice as she hugged her new gun closer. Vaughn didn’t reply immediately, instead looking over the group. His gaze settled on the robots. 

“Hey!” he exclaimed. “Why don’t we use the beacon? That’ll summon the Vault and then we can go in after them,” he explained, eliciting some nods from the group. Athena opened her mouth to reply but was cut off by Gortys’ excited squeal. 

“That is a  _ great  _ idea, Vaughn!” Gortys enthused. “Back in a jiffy!” she said and the little robot sped away towards the hulking chassis left behind. 

“Wait!” Athena called, but Gortys had already disappeared into the much larger structure. The light at the tip of the antenna danced to life and the massive joints of the robot groaned as it once again began to move. The ground shook as the robot took a step towards them, and a gust of wind nearly blew them over. 

“Woah, careful there, Gortys,” Vaughn yelped, shielding his eyes from the dust kicked up in the wind. 

“Uh, guys,” Sasha started. “I don’t think that was Gortys,” she stated as the wind picked up around them. Dust pelted them in waves and the Vaughn kept his arms up to protect his eyes.

“Uh oh,” Gortys moaned, “not again! Everybody hold on!” the giant robot ordered, and with a single stride came to tower over the group, before reaching down for them. Vaughn and Sasha both ducked instinctively, cringing, until they found themselves swept up into spinning chairs. “Everybody okay?” Gortys asked, and Vaughn slowly cracked open one eye, and then the other, seeing they were in Gortys’ cockpit. He was relieved to see the surprise on Sasha’s face that mirrored his own, though it was short-lived, quickly replaced by the familiar visage of cool composure. The others didn’t seem at all fazed by the abrupt transition.

“Huh, is that what happened last time?” Vaughn asked. 

“Yes, but there weren’t as many of you last time; sorry LoaderBot,” Gortys replied. Looking around Vaughn noticed that while he, Sasha, Janey, Athena, and August had seats in front of some sort of consoles, LoaderBot stood at the back of the room.

“It is okay, Gortys,” LoaderBot said, inclining his head slightly. “The humans are more susceptible to falling in the upcoming battle and need the seats,” he admitted in his even tone. 

“I knew you’d understand!” Gortys gleefully replied. The humans simultaneously leveled LoaderBot with unimpressed glares. They didn’t have a chance to protest though, for just then a bright flash of violet lightning lit up the room. 

“Woah!” Vaughn gasped as everyone returned their attention to the viewport. The wind whipped the dust into frenzied clouds and twisters as Gortys shifted uneasily, the room swaying as it moved. The room inhaled collectively as another bolt of lightning launched from one cloud to another and the dust began to coalesce. 

Shortly after, another bolt crackled across the undulating clouds. Then another. And another. Until several bolts spider webbed across the converging storm clouds at a time. 

A particularly bright bolt broke away from the clouds, instead racing toward Gortys. With a startled “oh!” she stumbled back, throwing her hands up in front of her face to protect the viewport from the bolt. The sudden lurch however still slammed everyone forward into their consoles, and sent the room into chaos.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, that was different. Hopefully not a too terribly bad different. Poor Rhysies Pieces. In order to get through this second chapter I actually had to rework my outline and merge a couple chapters because I realized they were unnecessary or super short. Believe it or not at some point Rhys will stop screaming... I've adjusted the number of chapters accordingly but just an FYI I'll probably end up restructuring a bit more and changing the chapter count again... 
> 
> I've been kind of experimenting with the POV jumping. Hopefully it's not too confusing or annoying.
> 
> Thank you all so much for the comments and the kudos! I'm so flattered and it really makes my day when I see a kudos or a comment... And is great motivation. :) 
> 
> Also if anybody wants to beta for me, drop me a line over on [tumblr.](http://arkemisia.tumblr.com/) <3 Also for the people that sent me prompts: I haven't forgotten them! I just am following where my inspiration takes me at the moment and it's mostly focused on this fic at the moment. Haha.


	3. Pieces of People We Love

Rhys and Fiona fell to the cavern floor with what felt like the force of a moonshot and Rhys contorted with a new fervor, his screams hoarse and ragged, the cracks and patterns in his skin expanding, flowing wider.

"RHYS! Not here!" Fiona choked out. "Rhys, you've got to hear me! We’ve got to get out of here!" she yelled trying to be heard over him. He writhed, pulling her over him to the ground. She hit it with her shoulder but used the momentum to swing back upright, pulling him up to his knees with her. She grabbed his shoulders harder and brought her face as close as she could to him.

"Rhys, can you hear me?!" she shouted and he gasped.

"Fi-oh-GOD-ahaa," he cried through clenched teeth. Even those looked brightly white with tiny tendrils of violet electricity dancing between them. She started to tip, to feel the ground disappear and she shook him again.

"Rhys, we’ve got to get back!"

"I - I can't - all I see are - it's too fast - too much - oh GOD, it hurts!" he cried and they fell into the white hot brightness again.

Fiona's horrified face drew away from him as he fell head over heels, her hand clutching his boot awkwardly as she sped away in the caravan. Fiona’s eyes widened when they hit the ground, bathed in violet light, tumbling over and over, as the caravan, with her doppelganger, sped away. The force of their initial impact with the ground sent a circle of dust and violet lightning rushing outward like a tidal wave. It quickly overtook the caravan and sent it end over end.

They tumbled together, and she was vaguely aware they were not alone, though she couldn’t worry about that as she struggled to maintain her hold on Rhys’ shoulders. They slowly came to a stop, her death grip still clutching his shoulders in a mix between a hug and a stranglehold. She slid her grip back to his shoulders as she looked around.

"Nope, try again! You can do it, come on, Rhys! Find our friends! Find Vaughn and Sasha!"

Vaughn.

They fell again.

They slammed to the ground again; tiles cracked and bloodied their knees, and with a groan and a woosh, the electric shockwave rolled out. Monitors and displays exploded, shattered glass falling everywhere, crackling and popping as the computer lab erupted into chaos and destruction.

"NO!" Rhys yelled as the brilliant violet scythe surged towards the room’s rudely surprised occupants. The ground fell away again and they returned to the cavern with a bone crunching thud. Rhys wailed anew but it was more of a sob than a scream.

"Rhys, it's okay! You can do this!" Fiona yelled, her voice more confident than she felt.

Rhys was sure he was going to burst, be pulled apart at the seams, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Then came the quiet.

The howling in the air remained, but a pocket of quiet beckoned him off to the side, pressure building in the closer ear. The quiet was so startling, for a moment, Rhys forgot the lava in his veins and forgot to cry out from the pain. Unconsciously yawning and stretching his neck in an attempt to equalize the growing pressure in his ear, he turned in the direction of the quiet.

He blinked slowly, trying to clear the violet fog and fuzziness, as he gazed upon a soft white orb. It was a refreshing breeze against the molten flames in his veins and it cooled the sweat on his skin. He took a shivering breath as he stared at it.

“Rhys?” Fiona ventured. As suddenly as he’d started shrieking and convulsing before, he’d turned his head to the side and stopped, staring at an unremarkable spot on the wall with unfocused eyes.The violet rivers and tributaries on his skin smoldered, radiating light and heat; her hands tingled where they touched him.   

“There’s a light,” he whispered, his voice ragged and small. Fiona looked from him to the wall and back.

“No, no-no,” she stuttered. “Rhys, I’m pretty sure in near death experiences going towards the light is a terrible idea. Rhys!” she called but he showed no sign of hearing her. He started to pull away from her, leaning towards the wall, but she held tight onto his shoulders. “Hey! Hey!” she tried yelling, shaking him. He hunched his shoulders at that and scrunched up his face, the placid, dreamlike stare disappearing in an instant as he sucked air in through his teeth.

The fire tore at his edges as he tried to break free, tried to reach the soft white light. It was something soft but solid in the static and he was going to get it.

“Rhys!” Fiona yelled as the ground disintegrated beneath them into the brightening violet light and they fell into weightlessness again.The longer they fell, the faster they went, until they landed askance on the solid ground, topping over as the violet shockwave from the impact spread out around them, slicing through rolling clouds of dust and lightning. The clouds parted to reveal the Vault door materializing behind them and nearby the giant Gortys stumbled backwards, recoiling from the shockwave’s force.

As Fiona gauged her surroundings with ecstatic relief she tried to get through to Rhys.

“The beacon!” She yelled. “The light was the beacon, Rhys!”

“Hey! It’s them!” Vaughn shouted from the cockpit, but Sasha was already moving. They disengaged from the giant robot to run toward their friends. Vaughn and Sasha were the first out, with Athena, Janey, and August close behind. LoaderBot and Gortys, once again in her smaller form, trailed after them, leaving behind the giant robotic skeleton.

The ground began to shift below Rhys and Fiona and she held his shoulders tight.

"No, no - not again!" Fiona yelped and Rhys cringed, gritting his teeth. "We're here!" she said, but he was more concerned with the absence of the soft white orb. It was gone, and with it, the small amount of cooling relief and quiet.

“No! Oh no, it's gone!” He cried. “God, bring it back! Make it stop!” his groan crescendoed into a shout, “Make it stop!” Violet lightning crackled in the air and his smoldering purple tattoos flared white. That gave the approaching group pause as they ran towards them.

“What - the - the beacon?” Fiona asked, looking up at the towering robot skeleton. “Rhys, we’re here! It’s okay,” Fiona repeated as Vaughn fell to his knees beside them with Sasha on the other side.

“What happened?” Vaughn asked, raising his voice over the wind.

“I - I’m not quite sure!” Fiona replied.

“What’s wrong with him?!” August shouted from farther away. Another crack of pure purple energy startled them and he took a step back.    

“I don’t know! We were stuck in the Vault and - there was this - this chest of eridium. He scanned it and something happened; he started glowing and flipping out and-” Fiona forced the words out as fast as she could. “And then I shot the chest and it disappeared and-” Rhys was thrashing in her grip and her hands were slipping.

“S-somebody he-GUH-” he groaned but a violet flash from behind his eyes and his cybernetics cut him off.

“Hold onto him!” Fiona instructed. “I think he’s been teleporting us! But it’s weird; it - I don’t know! I think shaking him stops it sometimes!” Sasha grabbed his cybernetic arm, just underneath where Fiona held his shoulder, and Vaughn grabbed his other hand but immediately snached his own back.

“Ow, God!” Vaughn exclaimed, looking at his hand briefly before grabbing Rhys’ hand again and grimacing. “It’s like grabbing a stun baton!” Vaughn said.

“Oh, so that’s why I can’t feel my hands,” Fiona quipped.

“Shaking him? Really, Fiona?” Sasha yelled.

“Listen, I’ve seen some weird shit just now; has shaking him seemed to correlate with _less_ weird shit happening? Yes!” Fiona yelled. Vaughn opened his mouth to say something but a lightning bolt shot out at them, peeling off of one of the glowing cracks in the side of Rhys’ neck, transforming his words into a pained yelp.

Sasha was the first to recover. Holding his upper arm with her good arm, she gave a shake, leaning in close.  

“Rhys! Can you hear me?” she asked. “It’s me, Sasha-”

Sasha was talking. Even blinded by violet and white he would recognize her voice anywhere. He tried to open his eyes against the light, and made out three, fuzzy washed out figures.

His eyes settled on the red hair scarf and he felt something pulling on him, pulling him again, down through the ground as if it wasn’t there.

Sasha walked into the room, her hair was different, and she wore new clothes: a new off the shoulder shirt; He had a hard time not staring. He went in for the hug but she simply bypassed him. He ran a hand through his hair, and a voice, his voice, was screaming somewhere.

_“That’s not right!”_

There was a knot at the back of his head and his entire body shook, rupturing the knot and he was kneeling again with the three figures surrounding him with unyielding hands.

“What the hell was that?” Sasha cried.

“The weird shit!” Fiona quickly supplied. “We stopped him before he actually did - it, whatever _it_ is  - but he started! Look out for that weird, queasy, floaty feeling!”

“Right!” Sasha said with a nod.

Another shockwave tested all of their grips and Vaughn grimaced as a streak of violet lightning danced from Rhys’ arm to his. He grunted through it and leaned back in.

“Rhys, I’m here, bro,” Vaughn reassured, reaching out and cupping the side of Rhys’ neck untouched by tattoos. “We’ll get through this; it’ll be okay,” he said, watching Rhys pry his eyes open again. “You can do it.”

“Everything’s okay, bro; you did it,” Vaughn said, squeezing his hand. Rhys’ head lolled against the hospital pillow.

“ _We_ did it, bro,” he slurred, lifting up his brand new cybernetic arm in victory. Vaughn grinned, putting a hand behind Rhys’ neck and touching foreheads.

And then the bed shook; it shook so violently Rhys was falling. Another shake and he was on his knees again, with the three figures holding him tight. He took a breath and it felt like the first one in a lifetime. He blinked furiously, squinting, trying to bring the people in front of him into focus.

“Vaughn,” Rhys gasped, and his friend grinned like a fool in the violet light.

“Rhys?!” he called. “It’s gonna be okay! Can you tell us how to help?”

“I - I don’t know - I keep - seeing things - and falling,” Rhys managed out. “Everything’s… pulling me,” he gasped.

“Well,” Vaughn started, looking around wildly, “Focus on me,” he tried. “Stay with me, bro.” Rhys did focus, and suddenly he was atop LoaderBot again flying over the desert; Vaughn’s fist extended expectantly. Rhys turned away.

Fire blossomed again in the base of his skull, as he yelled in protest, and tried to pull away, but hands held him still.

“It’s not right!” Rhys yelled. He opened his eyes again and Vaughn was still there, bright violet overwriting his natural color. Something tugged at Rhys’ edges and he half groaned, half yelled at it. “I can’t, Vaughn!” he cried.

“You can! If this - if this is you - you can control it! It’s just like the implants, bro; just… figure out the wiring; figure out the commands,” Vaughn suggested. Fiona and Sasha looked at him in surprise, while Rhys seemed to consider his words, face still contorted as the wind whipped his mussed hair about in a wild, violet highlighted halo.

“Yes! That’s right!” Fiona agreed hastily. “We only go where you think, right? That’s what I’ve been seeing, sort of, right?” she asked hopefully. “Just, focus here!” she said beaming an encouraging grin at him. Sasha looked from her sister to the company man with wide, worried eyes.

The neon violet light behind his eyes dimmed as he squinted and twitched, gaze unfocusing. Another bolt erupted from his temple and he threw his head back with a cry, and ground seemed to shift sideways.

“Rhys!” Sasha called.

“Hey!” Fiona yelped as she felt the ground begin to drop beneath them. “Here! Stay here with us!” she said before Sasha gave his shoulders a firm shake.

“Hey, stop it! He can’t figure it out if you keep doing that!” Vaughn snapped.

“You want to get stuck popping in and out all over the place?! Because that’s what’s gonna happen!” Sasha argued as a fresh gust of wind and dirt whipped their faces and made her recoil.

“I can’t - I keep remembering - misremembering - God, just make it stop!” he moaned through clenched teeth as the violet tattoos pulsed brighter once again, sending electric crescents out in all directions, making the others flinch and have to hold tighter to avoid being blown away. “I'm gonna - I'm gonna - it’s gonna rip me apart - I can't - hold it - any longer!” he said, his eyes and tattoos brilliant white.

From where she stood in front of Janey, Athena deflected a particularly nasty bolt with her shield, and set her jaw. With a few powerful strides, she came upon the four of them. She pulled Fiona back away from Rhys, and in one fluid motion took her place, and punched him in the face, sending him flying a few feet backwards and out of Sasha and Vaughn’s hands.

“Hey!!” Fiona and Sasha both exclaimed.

“What the hell?!” Vaughn yelled at her. The violet lightning flickered through the air, popping angrily.

And then it stopped. The tumultuous wind spun down to a light breeze, the dirt hanging in the air for a split second before succumbing to gravity, and then the  Vault door disappeared entirely.

“The fuck?” August exclaimed from the farthest away. Vaughn scrambled over to where Rhys was now sprawled out on the ground. The violet lightning bolts branded into his skin still smoked, glowing, but pulsed gently with an easy regularity instead of the explosive, white hot flares.

“You could’ve killed him!” Vaughn yelled after checking his pulse.

“But I didn’t. And it worked,” Athena responded, motioning vaguely to their surroundings. “You’re welcome,” she added, powering down her shield and cocking her hip. Vaughn glared, nostrils flaring for a moment before returning his attention to Rhys, putting his hand on his friend’s cheek, the one with the violet luminescent tattoos, and feeling how incredibly hot it still was.

Sasha and Fiona hadn’t managed to get up from where they’d ended up on the ground. Fiona took a steadying breath and swept her hair out of her eyes, before looking at her hands. Despite the incessant pins and needles, they didn’t appear injured.

“Well, that was… unpleasant,” she said. Athena took the couple steps forward to stand over Vaughn and Rhys. Vaughn looked up at her with narrowed eyes.

“You’re not gonna hit him again, are you?”

“Should I?” she asked plainly.

“No?!” Vaughn replied sputtering. Athena gave the smallest shrug of her shoulders and appraised the glowing tattoos down Rhys’ side.

“Those looks like siren tattoos,” she said. She looked back towards where the Vault door had been moments ago. “And teleporting through dimensions _is_ a known siren’s power,” she added, but furrowed her brow and frowned.

“Except, one problem, ‘Thena,” Janey pointed out coming closer. “He’s a fella.”

“I’m well aware of that, Springs,” Athena replied calmly. “I’m just saying what it looked like. He can’t be a siren. Nobody just _becomes_ a siren,” she said.

“Well, whatever,” Vaughn interrupted, “let’s just... get him back to the base okay? Get a doctor to look at him… I think you broke his nose,” Vaughn said, trailing off.

“Will a doctor be able to do something about…” Sasha started, motioning to the violet tattoos, “this… though?” she asked while Vaughn and Fiona hauled the unconscious Rhys to his feet, slinging his arms awkwardly over their shoulders. His head rolled and cracked against Vaughn’s, the height difference making him slump over the much shorter man.  

“Oh geez,” Vaughn yelped.

“Do you… want me to swap in?” Sasha asked, eying the disaster that was the difficulty of two people with already disparate heights trying to support the much taller dead weight.

“No, I got it,” Vaughn said from practically under his friend’s entire upper body.

“Maybe get his feet?” Fiona suggested. She grunted and readjusted the metal arm over her shoulder. “Ugh, how can someone so skinny be so heavy?” she whined.

“Uh, folks?” Janey called as Sasha was just contemplating how to respond. Fiona, Sasha, and Vaughn all stopped to look over at her. She stepped aside while Athena stood opposite her with her hands on her hips and Janey waved at LoaderBot.

“Hi,” he said, looking from person to person.

“Oh,” Vaughn said, “right.”

“LoaderBot, could you give us a hand?” Fiona asked as sweetly as she could under the weight of Rhys’ mechanical arm.

“As you wish,” he said and plodded forward. Vaughn and Sasha relinquished Rhys as LoaderBot scooped him up and easily stood. 

“Oh, that works, I guess,” Vaughn said, rubbing the back of his neck. Fiona put a hand over her mouth to cover her smile and Sasha laughed, while LoaderBot held the unconscious Rhys bridal style, looking, uncomprehending, from face to face.

“What,” LoaderBot said more than asked with his distinct lack of intonation, but the others just shook their heads.  
  


The trip back took significantly longer as their vehicles had been destroyed. They approached the ruins of Helios after nightfall. The softly shimmering violet tattoos on Rhys’ face, neck, and arm were more striking at night, casting the whole group in their glow in the dark.  

The former Hyperion employees watched quietly as the group went further into the base; they seemed transfixed as they stared with varying levels of distress on their faces.

“Oh, he’s okay; everything’s fine,” Vaughn announced, trying to wave them off. “Just needs some rest, I bet. Don’t worry, folks,” he said. No one said anything but they pulled back some, and let Vaughn lead the group to what constituted the dormitories now. He ushered them into a small single bedroom. The room was barely big enough to fit LoaderBot carrying Rhys, Vaugh, and the two sisters who hurried in after them.

“He can stay in my bunk; I’ll go get the doctor,” Vaughn said before August grabbed his arm. He eyed the sisters, standing on either side of LoaderBoat, before taking a deep breath and letting it out his nose in a controlled huff. He returned his sharp glare to the shorter man whose arm he held captive.

“Hey, you got a bar in this place?” he asked.

“Uh, yea, kinda. It’s nothing fancy, but,” Vaughn replied, shrugging off the other man’s grip, but nothing more. “It’s on the way to the clinic, come on,” he said.

“Did I hear something about a bar?” Janey piped up, causing Athena to do a double take and cross her arms.

“You want to go to a bar…? Right now? When one of us-” she started until Janey bumped into her, her eyes wide.

“Yes, _right now_ ,” Janey said. She looked straight into Athena’s eyes until she was sure she had her attention, and then looked to the sisters, and then back to Athena. Athena followed the movement, but seemed no more enlightened. She just blinked and shook her head.

“Okay, Springs, whatever you say,” Athena acquiesced and threaded her arm in Janey’s, letting the taller woman steer them after Vaughn and August, disappearing down the hallway.

LoaderBot set Rhys down on the plain cot and then stepped back out into the hallway to reunite with Gortys. Sasha walked over to the cot and leaned over him a little, studying the tattoos.

“This is wild,” she breathed.

“No kidding,” Fiona replied, leaning against a banged up old dresser. “You know, he almost looks peaceful now,” she said, and the sisters tilted their heads in unison. “Except for the whole scratch marks, and broken nose, and glowy… mark… things…” she added lamely. Sasha let out a bark of laughter.

“Yea,” she said, sighing with a smile. “I guess he does.” They both stared at the unconscious Rhys before looking at each other and laughing. Fiona brushed her hair out of her face, smiling.

“Do you… do you think he’ll be okay?” Sasha asked. “I mean… that was… really weird. And he screamed _a lot_ … But then again I suppose he screams at his own shadow sometimes,” Sasha said with a tiny laugh, turning her head appraisingly this way and that.

“I think he’ll be fine,” Fiona assured chuckling and leaning forward before settling back against the dresser, picking up a foot and bracing it against the dresser drawers. “He’s a stubborn one,” she stated with a nod. After a brief period of silence, in which Fiona’s gaze flitted from the passed out company man to her abnormally contemplative sister and back, Fiona resituated herself and spoke up again.

“You know, he still likes you,” Fiona said. “Like a lot,” she added with a smirk. Sasha rolled her eyes and grabbed her stiff arm with her good one, looking away, but smiling.

“Yea, I kind of picked up on that; he’s not exactly discreet,” she said quietly. “We’ve been over this,” she laughed weakly.

“But I mean a lot. I put him on the _spot_ and he did not back down,” Fiona reported and Sasha looked at her with wide eyes. “Before we went into the Vault. I had to ask,” she said.

“Your sense of timing is impeccable sometimes, Fiona,” Sasha remarked and Fiona laughed.

“Yea, I know,” she agreed. “But his response… wasn’t as lame as it could have been,” she admitted. “It was pretty pathetic though in an awkward skag pup trying madly to kiss you, failing, and falling all over itself, kind of way, but it was honestly kind of adorable,” Fiona said and Sasha could only regard her older sister with wide eyes.

“I know you’ve kind of been on the fence about it but… I kind of told him to go for it,” Fiona confessed and Sasha’s eyebrows shot up nearly into her hairline.

“I know, I know; Hyperion scum! Eughh! But well… I thought for once I’d just… get out of your way,” Fiona said, looking off to the side. “Might be nice to try someone who's not a mark.”

“Fi…” Sasha breathed.

“I just - I know we make fun - he’s a clumsy dork with questionable judgement - but I think… you maybe actually like him too so… why not?” Fiona rambled and then immediately wondered why she’d opened her mouth in the first place. “Ugh,” she groaned and put a hand to her head. “Can I claim insanity due to the stress of having to keep his sorry ass from getting lost in another dimension and forget I said anything?” she asked and Sasha laughed.

“Your sense of timing _really_ is _impeccable,”_ Sasha reiterated, her eyes rolling before coming to land on Rhys’ unconscious form. Fiona took a breath and opened her mouth to say something before closing it again. Reconsidering for a moment but then reopening her mouth again anyway.   

“You were one of the reasons he was determined to get back though so… There's that,” Fiona had to add. She looked at her kid sister from the corner of her eye, trying to gauge her reaction, but Sasha’s face was trained too well. Then she chewed her lip and Fiona smirked knowingly.

Unfortunately, the door opened and Vaughn and another man walked in before anything else could be said.

“Any change?” Vaughn asked and both sisters shook their heads as the doctor paused in the doorway.

“My God,” he breathed, staring at Rhys on the cot, radiant tattoos and all. The doctor seemed to notice their stares and cleared his throat, before entering the room fully. He adjusted a high tech pair of glasses on his nose, and though a large crack marred one of the lenses, the displays still came to life, diagnostics scrolling down the screen as he stood next to the cot, running a hand held device over the still form.

He hummed a bit, eyes flicking to Rhys’ face, before returning to the glowing tattoos. He ran the device in his hand over Rhys again, before sighing, and putting it away. He bent over Rhys’ face and gingerly touched his nose, taking in the swelling, scratches, and odd glowing purple lines radiating from the port on his temple.

Eventually, the doctor leaned back, with a dissatisfied grunt, done.

“His nose is broken but it’ll heal just fine. Some antiinflammatories and cold packs and time. Some sterilizing wipes and antibiotic ointment for the scratches too,” the doctor reported. “I’ve been trying to ration how many supplies I dole out since the fall, but given the extraordinary circumstances…” he trailed off, staring.

“And the… glowy marks?” Vaughn asked and the doctor shook his head.

“I honestly don’t know; they aren’t burns of any kind I, or the database, have seen. It’s completely new territory,” he replied with a helpless grimace. “If I still had my lab and my staff I could run more advanced diagnostics, tests, biopsies, but now?” The doctor trailed off again with a heavy hearted sigh. “…Other than the nose, minor lacerations, and fatigue, he seems to be in perfectly good health,” he said looking down at Rhys. “Amazing though… what I wouldn’t have given to study this on Helios in its prime.” Sasha furrowed her brow and narrowed her eyes.

“Well?” she asked, startling the man.

“Beg pardon?”

“Aren’t you going to go get the… stuff?” she asked and he jumped a bit, seeming to realize he’d been caught staring.

“Of-of course,” he said and scurried off. Fiona leveled her sister with a look and a smirk.

“Sasha,” she said in a playful warning tone.

“What?” Sasha asked, shifting on her feet away from her sister. “He was just staring; had this stupid look on his face. I didn’t like it.” Fiona shook her head, smiling, which only made Sasha scowl.

“O-kay,” Vaughn said. “Try not to anger Dr Clark; he’s the only real physician we have left,” he implored. “And he really _should_ look at your arm,” Vaughn added, glancing emphatically at the arm she held stiffly at her side. Sasha looked at him then, her shoulders hunching defensively a bit before settling.

“Fine,” she said and took a deep breath, bringing her good hand up to her forehead.

“You two look beat,” Vaughn observed.

“And somehow you don’t,” Fiona quipped, to which Vaughn simply shrugged.

“I’m tired but I don’t feel like I did a lot,” he responded. “Why don’t you two go get cleaned up, maybe get some food and shut eye?” he suggested and when the sisters didn’t respond, he continued. “Follow the downward sloping hallways and you’ll inevitably end up in the Hub of Heroism. That’s where everything that matters is or can be found through. Ask anybody; they should be able to help you find what you need”

“What about Rhys?” Fiona asked.

“I’ll stay with him, and take care of him when the doctor gets back. It’s not like I haven’t done it before,” he said with a lopsided smile, at which the sisters trained him with curious stares. “I helped take care of him when he first got his implants, and you may or may not have noticed but he was always kind of accident prone in the first place, so patching him up wasn’t exactly something new _then_ either,” he finished with a laugh.  

“Go on,” he urged and they reluctantly let him usher them to the door.

“Okay, okay,” Fiona agreed, if just to get the deceptively strong man to stop pushing at her. “We’ll be back in a bit though, to relieve you,” she said, looking to Sasha, who smiled and nodded, with renewed vigor.

“Great, sounds like a plan,” Vaughn agreed and waved as the sisters left the room. The door shut behind them, and he let his hand drop to his side, before standing in the center of the room for a moment. He let his gaze drift back to Rhys on the cot, before he took a few steps to it and plopped down to sit on the edge. He turned his head to the side as he took in his friend’s face and unkempt hair: a rare sight.

“Man, we’re gonna have to find you some gel, aren’t we?” he laughed. “Did you find a stash or something at Atlas? Sheesh,” Vaughn asked the quiet. Rhys, bruised and broken nose, curling hair, and otherworldly glow, did not answer. Taking a deep breath Vaughn leaned back, and he could have sworn he saw a faint violet flash beneath the closed eyelids and even a brief flutter. He waited, paying the utmost attention, but a moment, and then another, and another passed, but he saw no more movement and his shoulders drooped.

“Oh man,” he said with a shuddering breath and dropped his head into his hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh haha, well this chapter was longer than the previous two... Soon Rhys will be able to do something other than scream uncontrollably. I swear.
> 
> Huge shout-out to the beta readers: kawaii-as-fcuk-bunddy, windradeadzed, and mysocksdrawer!! <3333
> 
> If you want, come and see me on [tumblr](http://arkemisia.tumblr.com/)! I'm always open to prompts, headcanons, crazed rambling, and general fangirling!


	4. Nobody Lost, Nobody Found

Rhys floated, stuck, in the violet haze, amongst the whispers. Each time his feet hit the ground,strange faces in places he’d never been turned to stare, and he shied away, falling, falling again, until he reached this no where place. Though the feeling in his stomach told him he was falling, no air whipped by him, no ground rushed up to meet him.

Just violet light and darkness.

Was he really falling if he wasn’t even sure if he was moving? He scrunched his eyes shut and dug his palms into them. The throbbing in the back of his head pulsed into them, making his stomach churn. When he moved his hands away he stared at them, past the floating spots in his vision. His sleek cybernetic arm suddenly looked the more normal of the two, for glowing purplish lightning bolt tattoos marred his hand of flesh and blood.

A prickling on the back of his neck gave him pause and he held his breath, the whispers continuing, ever present and unyielding.

Laughter echoed in the void above the whispers and his heart began to thud harder against his chest. Impossible.

“No,” Rhys muttered, looking around the hazy empty space. Where was Fiona? Vaughn? Sasha? Anybody? Where was the damn beacon? He was sure he’d reached it. Hadn’t he? The laughter stopped.

“It’s just you and me, kiddo,” Jack’s voice declared in his ear, sending Rhys stumbling backwards.

“No! You’re dead! This-this is impossible,” Rhys cried as he backpedalled in the air; wisps of the haze flowed around him to fill the void he created. But sure enough Handsome Jack stood, on nothing, in front of him. Not as a hologram, but a man. He crossed his arms in front of his chest and smiled a cheshire cat grin.

“Oh, no way, cupcake. Nobody gets rid of Handsome Jack that easily,” he stated as he leered. He dropped his arms back to his sides and took a step forward. Rhys threw his hands in front of him.

“Stay back!” he yelled. “You’re not real! This can’t be real!” he protested and Jack simply smiled wider, on the verge of replying when his eyes caught sight of the glow of Rhys’ hand.

“Well hello there; what do we have here?” Jack crooned. He brought up his own hands and turned them palm up. To Rhys’ horror, his own arms mirrored the movements.”This is an interesting little development,” Jack observed, as the tattoos on Rhys’ hand burned brighter and hotter for a moment; Rhys sucked in a breath through his teeth before the pain, and the tattoos, to his astonishment, faded.

He could only watch as Jack turned both pairs of hands back around. He couldn’t move as violet streams painted their way across Jack’s hand, crawled up his arm, and seeped behind his mask; his eyes flared and a blinding light gathered in his palms. “Oh, this is gonna be awesome!” he said, laughing, and the light erupted from his hands, ramming into Rhys’ chest. It shoved him backwards and he was falling again into darkness.      
  


 

Falling again until Rhys’ back hit something soft and his arms and legs shot out to grab something solid.

Something like - a bed? He blinked, his heartbeat pumping loud in his ears, and his eyes staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling. He bolted upright and immediately regretted it.

A groan quickly transitioned into an all out shout as his vision went dark and his stomach rushed up into his throat. With one hand over his mouth he groped around the room as his vision cleared all too slowly. He yanked a trash can from near a dented dresser and brought it up just as the contents of his stomach violently forced their way back up.

Luckily, or unluckily, it wasn’t much, and after the first retch, all he could do was gasp and dry heave, tears leaking from his eyes as he squeezed them shut.

After a couple more agonizing convulsions of his stomach, they finally slowed and stopped. He coughed and drew a deep, quivering breath, and then another. He pressed his lips together, the bitter taste of bile nearly making him gag again as he set the can as far away aside as possible. He tried to take a series of deep breaths through his nose only to gasp, finding he couldn’t, pain blossoming in the bridge of his nose and cheekbones.

“Gah, what the... shit?” he yelped, bringing a hand up and carefully prodding his nose. It was puffy and swollen, and quite painful. He moaned.

Everything ached. His limbs felt like lead and his head like it was stuffed full of steel wool. And his left side absolutely throbbed. He stared at his hands: the familiar, custom made robotic hand of gleaming silver, and his normal hand now emblazoned with violet scars.

Jack had been a dream then, Rhys reassured himself. Just another god awful nightmare. He ran his hands through his hair and the curls just fell back in his face, the gel long washed out from the little dip in the Vault cavern’s lake. He groaned, catching sight of the trash can.

“Ah crap, somebody’s gonna have to clean that up,” he realized. He went to stand but suddenly his eyes crossed, the floor wasn't where he expected it to be and he fell right back down on the bed. “Mmmaybe later,” he muttered to himself as he leaned on his robotic arm and rubbed his eyes carefully with his other hand. His tongue ran along the top of his mouth and he grimaced, the bitter taste making him stick his tongue out and gag.

“Okay, no, that’s gotta go,” he stated with some renewed determination and carefully got to his feet, one hand still on his face covering his cybernetic eye, in an attempt to correct his depth perception.

His legs wobbled as he found the door, exited the small room, and entered the open air hallway. He realized he must be in a part of old Helios, as he looked up past the ruined walls in front of him, the exposed metal beams opposite him reaching towards the sky. He made his way down the sloping hall to the central hub of the ruins of Helios, with his robotic hand never straying far from the steadying wall.

A door opened and one of the former Hyperion employes, Children of Helios now, froze upon seeing him.

“Uhh,” was all Rhys could manage out, one hand over his eye and the other grasping desperately to the wall, before the man in a tattered suit fell to his hands and knees to lay prostrate on the ground. A rolling clatter sounded from the room beyond the doorway as the rest of the occupants saw and followed suit, practically throwing themselves to the ground. “Uhhh,” Rhys moaned awkwardly, choosing to ignore the room of prone, silent figures, and continued instead along the hallway. As soon as he turned his back they began whispering.

The scene repeated several more times as he entered the busier areas of Helios, each time more disconcerting than the last, the whispering growing louder, and not waiting for him to turn away.  

What used to be the Hub of Heroism still managed to be the center the ruins, but now served many functions: meeting place, cafeteria, rec area, and general center of operations.

Rhys found himself quite unsteady on his feet, each step as uncertain as if his legs were made of jelly, extremely heavy jelly.  He desperately moved from bench, to table, to garbage can, using them all as anchors on his way through the open space, in some incredibly slow, odd imitation of a game of human pinball. He stumbled a bit and hit a garbage can, knocking it over. A surge of whispers surrounded him and a warmth spread across his face and flowed down his back and side. He could almost hear the alarm and half expected Helios’ automated PA system to summon him to clean it up as assistant vice janitor.  

He shook himself and no such announcement came. He did, however, hear the series of thuds as undoubtedly the occupants of the main area had noticed him. And yes, he realized as he opened his eyes once again, the Children of Helios had fallen before him yet again. He sighed uncomfortably.

“Would you guys please stop doing that?” he groaned but no one responded. Instead, most of them scooted away from him and disappeared into the dozens of alcoves, offices, and hallways. Rhys looked up into the office Vaughn now used but couldn’t see any movement in it, and couldn’t muster the energy to continue up to it. Instead he found an abandoned chair already pulled out at one of the tables and plopped down in it.

He crossed his arms on the table and dropped his head onto them, well aware of the whispers at his back. He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, just breathing and trying to will himself back into action before he heard footsteps, actual footsteps, approaching him.

“Morning, sleeping beauty,” Yvette said once within earshot and Rhys turned his head to the side, laying his temple on his arms as he regarded her through bleary eyes. She looked the same.

“Heyyy Yvette,” he drawled. “I don’t suppose you could requisition me some mouthwash, oh all mighty requisitions master, good buddy, ol’ pal?”

“Sorry, buddy, fresh out,” she said, crossing her arms and cocking her hip as the smallest smile played upon her lips. “Not exactly something we keep in stock nowadays,” she added, the familiar humor quiet in her voice. “Might have some mints stashed somewhere but you’d owe me. Or baking soda and-” she said with a quirk of her eyebrows.

“Eughh,” Rhys moaned and turned his face back into his arms. “I’ll pass. Water then, you’ve got to have water, right? Because right now my mouth tastes like death by cheap vodka, except without the benefit of having actually been shitfaced last night.”

“Oh, I thought I recognized that look,” Yvette said with a shake of her head. “Okay, I’ll be right back. With a pitcher of water, a spitting bucket, and a coffee,” she consoled, but she paused before leaving. When he didn’t hear her leave Rhys turned to look at her and she seemed startled by his gaze; her face faltered a bit.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she said quietly, before turning and walking away as quickly as her high heeled shoes would allow. He was torn between wondering why she still wore the damn shoes and being touched by one of her rare displays of actual affection. He grimaced as some whispers interrupted his ruminations and instead he turned his face back to the table and hid in the crook of his arm, hoping for a moment the world would stand still and leave him alone.  
  


 

Sometime later more footsteps approached above the sporadic buzz of the whispering. He pushed away from the table and sat up straight to greet the group approaching: he blinked several more times when he noticed it was in fact a group and not just Yvette. She apparently brought not only the things she promised but Vaughn, Fiona, and a very frazzled Sasha, who wore an aircast around one arm, he noticed, as well.

“I step out for a minute to use the restroom and you somehow crawl your way to the Hub of Heroism, huh?” Sasha asked when close enough to hear. “Figures.”

Rhys gratefully accepted the pitcher of water from Yvette, while Vaughn pulled up a chair beside him setting down a mug of coffee, and Sasha slid the spit bucket under the table. After Rhys had sloshed a couple mouthfuls of water and spit them out, and proceeded to chug the rest of the pitcher, Vaughn sniffed and shifted in his chair.

“How’re you feeling, Rhys?” he ventured.

“Do you remember our first pub crawl?” Rhys asked, and a puzzled,surprised laugh escaped Vaughn at the memory.

“Yea,” he said. “I’ve never seen a driver pull over so fast as when you said you were going to be sick in that taxi. You ended up barfing in a garbage bin on the side of the road,” Vaughn recalled.

“Well, kinda like that,” Rhys explained. “Except I feel like the taxi backed up and ran me over, and then someone slam dunked my face into the garbage bin, before setting me on fire,” Rhys moaned, leaning heavily on the table. “Speaking of garbage bins, I might’ve resurrected the tradition…” he admitted shamefully. Vaughn stared for a moment before leaning back with an uneasy laugh.

“It’s not a party until Rhys is puking in the garbage bin,” Vaughn said, rubbing his hand down his beard, a smile crawling over his worried face.

“If that was a party, don’t invite me back; my partying days are over. That sucked,” Rhys replied, covering his eyes with his hand again.

“Don’t worry about it, bro. We’ll get somebody to clean it up. You just rest,” Vaughn reassured.

“Yea, I’m sure one of your cultists will leap at the chance to clean up the liberator’s vomit,” Fiona threw in with a smirk.

“Ugh, gross. Don't encourage them,” Yvette groaned.  

“About that…” Rhys started. “Would you please tell your… followers to stop… stop, drop, and whispering whenever they see me? It’s weird and I can’t -” Rhys rambled, the whispers were growing louder. “I can’t tell what they’re saying but I have ears! I can hear them and I know whatever they’re saying it’s probably not good, okay? Not funny. I just want some peace and quiet for once,” Rhys grumbled, his voice rising to be heard over the noise.

Vaughn, Fiona, Sasha, and Yvette exchanged glances before replying.

“Nobody’s whispering, bro,” Vaughn said and Rhys leveled him with a heavy glare. It hit him before he could snap out a retort. He moved his hand away from where it covered his eyes and stared at the violet tattoos peeking out from his sleeve. He let out an exasperated chuckle.

“Oh,” he breathed. “Oh good, and here I was hoping the ‘hearing voices no one else can hear’ stage of my life was over,” Rhys laughed in a high pitched, tight voice before his head dropped forward into his hands. The laugh above the din of the whispers came back to him and he shivered.

Sasha took the chair on Rhys’ other side as Vaughn slid the cup of coffee closer. Raising his head a bit, Rhys sighed and took the cup, grasping it with both hands, and watching the steam waft up from the dark liquid.

“They _are_ awkwardly throwing themselves to the floor at your feet though,” Fiona pointed out.

“I-yea, I’ll… work on that… but ever since they saw you _glowing_ and,” Vaughn started, but all eyes fell to Rhys’ hand, with it’s softly lit tattoos. Vaughn cleared his throat before bringing his gaze back up to Rhys’ face. “Er, glowing _more_ … they’ve come up with some… ideas,” he said with a cough. Rhys looked up at him and squinted.

“What kind of ideas?” he asked suspiciously.

“Well, let’s just say if they didn’t _worship_ you before, I think they do now,” Vaughn said.

“They think you’re a super special dude siren,” Fiona cut in.

“That,” Rhys droned, “is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.”

“Is it really, though?” Fiona asked. “Just… hear me out for a second. What if _that_ was the treasure in the vault? The power?” she continued. “Sure, you're not a _siren_ siren but it's gotta be something close, right?”

“Fiona…” Vaughn warned.

“I'm just saying: think of the possibilities,” she urged, waving her hands. Rhys looked away from her exuberant face, dropping his gaze back to the black coffee in his hands. “All great Vault hunter teams have a siren on them; we could-”

“Stop,” Rhys interrupted. “Just. Stop. Let me get this straight,” he said, bringing his gaze back up to meet hers. “You want _me_ to help you find more Vaults, inside one of which I just had the _worst_ experience of my entire _life_ up to this point, which seems to be a recurring theme on this planet, by the way, because you think I'm some kind of _siren_?” he asked, his voice rising with the volume of the whispers again. Fiona for the most part looked duly chastised, or at least as chastised as she ever looked.

“Okay, I'm sensing you aren't a fan of the idea,” Fiona replied after a moment, at which Rhys laughed, thankfully, and some of the indignation eased from shoulders he didn’t know he’d hunched.

“No, Fiona, no I am not,” he declared, bringing the mug up to take a sip. He drew it back however, before it reached his lips. The tattoos on his hand holding the mug pulsed brighter than before, flecks of white breaking through now and then. He tilted his head. “Huh,” he muttered.

“Yea, it-you’re markings started glowing brighter just now,” Vaughn observed.

“Neato,” Rhys sneered, before resuming movement and taking an exploratory sip of the coffee. It was warm and strong, and he gladly took another couple of gulps, the bitter taste replacing the acrid one lingering in his mouth. The whispering had faded some, though the lines on his hand remained vivid. After another swig, he shook his head, trying to dislodge the creeping feeling at the back of his neck.

“Listen, I’ve - I’ve got to get back to Atlas,” he said. “I’ve been gone too long already and there’s a lot to do,” he went on as the others stared in surprise.

“What? You just woke up,” Sasha protested.

“Yea, you’re in no condition to travel,” Vaughn said. “Dr Clark should probably take another look at you; see if he comes up with anything else. He’s been doing some research while you were… out,” he added and Sasha’s eyes narrowed.

“No, I’m fine. I just - I just want to get back to work. Wish I could say it’s been fun but, you know, it kinda sucked,” Rhys said, setting the mug back down on the table and making to stand. He got about halfway upright before dots started cluttering his field of view and his vision began to narrow to a tunnel and he sat back down.

“Oh yes, perfectly fine and completely able to traverse the Pandoran wastes,” Sasha said blithely. “You totally meant to do that, right? Weren’t actually planning on standing up, were you?” she asked and he swiveled a bit in the chair to pout at her.

“Absolutely, thank you,” he said and rubbed his face, wincing a bit as his fingers brushed his nose. Vaughn stood and offered his hand.

“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up. You’ll probably feel better after a shower and some food,” he said.

“Ohh, please don’t mention food,” Rhys groaned as his stomach churned. He took Vaughn’s hand anyway and let the shorter man pull him to his feet. He draped an arm across his shoulders as the multicolor spots reappeared and he swayed on his feet, the heat once again running down his face and neck.

“Hey, stay with me, bro,” Vaughn called, grabbing Rhys’ wrist and giving it a little shake.

“Huh, what? ‘M fine,” Rhys protested.

“Uh huh, sure, and that’s why your marks just went white there for a second,” Vaughn replied, and Rhys looked down at the arm Vaughn held; sure enough, the tattoos beamed brighter than before.

“Ugh,” Rhys moaned, “no fair.”

“I know,” Vaughn agreed as he started to lead Rhys towards one of the hallways.

“This sucks,” Rhys whined.

“I know,” Vaughn consoled. “Why don’t you guys let Athena and Janey know he’s up and about. We’ll get cleaned up and meet you guys back at the bunk?” he called over his shoulder at the group.

“Yea sure,” Fiona agreed.

“Oh quick, we need to grab one of those cultists to clean up for us,” Sasha reminded.

“Good call; I’m on it,” Yvette said, hurrying off.

“Would you stop calling them that?”  Vaughn whined but received no response. He mumbled under his breath as he and Rhys left the Hub of Heroism.

“Sorry, we don’t really have any private bathrooms anymore,” Vaughn was explaining. “It was tricky enough getting the plumbing back up and working; we figured it made the most sense to plumb the gym showers since that would get the most efficient use of the pipes…”

They eventually made their way down the hall to a point where Vaughn unslung Rhys’ arm from his shoulders and set him against the wall next to the door.

“You wait here,” he said. “I’m gonna go clear out the showers,” he added and disappeared inside. Rhys leaned his head back, his entire body feeling heavy, and sliding slowly down the wall. His arm and side burned and his clothes rubbed oddly, tingling against his skin there.

Violet began to creep along the edges of his vision, seeping inwards, and Rhys was immediately aware of the plummeting in his stomach: the falling sensation.

He shot upright, suddenly wide awake and blinking furiously against the violet intrusion. His heart was pounding and he was looking about with wide eyes as the former Hyperion employees exited the locker room, all bending at the waist and backing away from him wordlessly. Vaughn came up to him then, touching his elbow.

“Hey bro, you okay?” he asked and Rhys quickly looked at him.

“Yea, yea, I’m fine,” he assured, but Vaughn didn’t look the least bit convinced as he ushered his friend into the locker room. Hampers lined the walls, some with neatly folded towels and clothes, others with dirty bundles, blocking many of the actual lockers. Vaughn deposited him in one of the shower stalls and stepped back.

“I’ll get you a towel; there should be shampoo, conditioner, and soap dispensers on the wall,” he said and paused. “You sure you’re okay?” Vaughn asked. “It’s okay to not be okay,” he said and Rhys waved him off.

“I’m _fine_ ,” he reiterated, and Vaughn obediently ducked away. Half leaning against the wall, Rhys began to undress. He found his mechanical hand obeyed his instructions far faster and defter than his normal hand and switched, using his normal hand to brace himself instead.

His boots kicked off, and vest hanging from the nearby hook, he undid the first few buttons of his shirt, and exhaled in surprise. Popping the rest of them open, he shrugged off the shirt and stared down at himself, as if through the eyes of a stranger.

“Here you g-oh,” Vaughn breathed from behind him, going quiet. After a moment, “you still okay, bro?” he asked quietly.

Rhys flexed the hand in front of him, watching the fingers curl upon themselves. The jagged violet markings flared and stretched along his skin, from his fingertips all the way up his arm, across his chest and down his side, disappearing beneath his slacks.

“You know,” Rhys said, his voice hoarse, “I don't know what I was expecting. But this,” he managed out before having to pause. The lightning web sprawled all over his exposed skin, stopping almost exactly in the center of his sternum and stomach, as if he'd been cut in half vertically. “This is extensive,” he observed.

“Yea,” Vaughn agreed.

“Is… Is the back as bad?” Rhys asked turning around. Vaughn tilted his head back a little as he took in Rhys’ chest.

“All down your left side, yea,” he reported. “Just had to mess up your tattoos, huh?” he asked, his voice light. A weak laugh forced its way out of Rhys’ lungs.

“Yea, rude,” Rhys stated, frowning at how the glowing markings interrupted and shone through his inked sleeve and flourishes on his chest. Vaughn stared for a moment longer, clutching the towel in his hands.

“Does it hurt?” he finally asked, drawing Rhys’ attention up to him.

“Not so much now,” Rhys replied. “I mean yea, but… Not as bad as yesterday,” he added. “It's weird though it's like… It's like when they hooked me up to the IV before I got my implants and I told you the fluid they were putting in me felt cold? Like that but… Warm. And all over, well, all over my side, not just near one spot…”

“Weird,” Vaughn agreed.”It does look pretty cool though,” Vaughn finally pointed out. Rhys arched an eyebrow at that. “What? It does,” he said, grinning. Rhys laughed a little.

“Well, at least there’s that,” he said as Vaughn hung the towel on the hook next to Rhys’ vest and shirt.

“I’ll be right over here guarding the door so you can have your privacy,” Vaughn said as he walked out of Rhys’ eyesight.

“Thanks,” Rhys called as he pulled off his socks and slacks, again using the wall for support. Sure enough, the shining markings extended down his hip and all the way to his toes. He shook his head as he curled his toes into the tiles, vaguely aware of the whispering still at the back of his mind. With a sigh he turned on the water.

He put his hand under the water to test it and immediately withdrew it, hissing.

“Everything okay?” Vaughn called. Rhys stared at his hand; steam rose from the violet lines on his hand.

“Yea,” he replied, adjusting the water to a higher temperature. He stuck his hand under the stream again, and this time, though the markings steamed and burned through his skin, he was prepared for it. “God, this is so weird,” he muttered. The water was pleasantly warm against his skin, but wherever it touched the tattoos it felt so hot it was cold. Or so cold it was hot. He couldn’t quite be sure which.

The longer he held his hand under the water though the less prominent it stung, fading until it was just a dull tickle.

“What?” Vaughn asked.

“Apparently the tattoos don’t like water,” Rhys replied.

“Huh? What’s that mean?” Vaughn called.

“Don’t worry about it,” Rhys said as he backed into the shower stream, making a face as the water ran over his body, sending the strange searing sensation all the way down him. “So weird,” he repeated, his voice low among the sound of the rushing water and whispers. He tilted his head back slowly, mindful of his wobbly legs, careful so as to not to get water in his port or ears, and began to wash up.

As he rinsed the suds from his hair, something made him pause; a prickling. Was the water louder? The whispers became more distinct and he reached out for the wall. He shut off the water and squinted, casting his gaze about the locker room. The slippery tiles beneath his feet started to move, sliding, and he staggered, throwing both hands out to catch himself, as the voices surged to a roar in his ears.

“Rhys?!” he heard Vaughn shriek as violet clouds crowded into his vision.

“Vaughn!” Rhys cried as he fell, though his feet never left the ground. The violet devoured the shower stall around him and he fell. His knees cracked against the tiles and a single wave of glaring purplish white arcs of lightning surged out away from him, but strong hands grabbed his arms and held him still and steady as the world came back into focus.

“Rhys?” It was Vaughn’s voice saying his name again, and he tried to ignore the subsiding voices, focusing on the familiar timbre of it. As his vision cleared, he saw the tiles beneath his feet were not those of the shower stall, but the locker room proper. He and Vaughn knelt in front of one of the benches by the hampers.”Rhys?” Vaughn asked again and Rhys brought his hand up to his face. The whispers lingered behind his eyes but the world was solid again.

“Holy crap,” Rhys finally squeezed out.

“Here, just,” Vaughn stuttered, as he let go with one hand and reached into one of the hampers pulling out a folded towel. He carefully wiped Rhys’ forehead and cheek before wrapping it around him. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Rhys said. “I was just - I was just washing off and - the whispering got louder and I felt like I was slipping and then I ended up here.” He returned his gaze to his friend, who still held his arms with a vice like grip. “Thanks for catching me, bro,” he said with a strangled laugh. Vaughn laughed at that too, a desperately cheerful sound, as he patted Rhys’ arm.

“Anytime, bro,” he responded. “A little warning next time might be nice though.”

“Believe me; if I ever figure out how to tell, I will,” Rhys said, his strained smile inverting. Vaughn frowned at that and got to his feet, pulling Rhys up with him.

“Come on, let's get you dressed again and bring you back to the bunk for some food,” he said, depositing Rhys on the bench and going to fetch his clothes. Rhys’ stomach lurched at the mention of food and he grabbed onto the bench with his metal hand. When the ground beneath his feet remained where it should, he let loose a deep breath he'd been holding. He brought his organic hand up and glared at the traitorous violet fissures in his skin as they hissed a whispering sigh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretty sure at some point I had more notes for this chapter, but I currently can't think of any of them... 
> 
> Again, huge shout out to my beta readers! <3 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed the chapter! 
> 
> Come visit me on [tumblr](http://arkemisia.tumblr.com): I'm always open to prompts, headcanons... whatever!


	5. Unsteady

They managed to initially keep Rhys in the ruins of Helios for a couple weeks. Between the exhaustion of the ordeal and the struggle of dealing with powers he could not understand, he didn’t have the energy to leave anyway. For the most part of the first week he stayed in his borrowed bunk, seeing only his friends who alternated sitting with him. 

He soon chafed at the supervision, no matter how well intentioned it was. A grown man could only stand being mothered by half a dozen people, even his best friends, for so long. He started with solitary walks, to get some fresh air. He quickly learned that despite Vaughn’s best efforts, the Children of Helios were still more than awestruck by his presence, and he determined to avoid them as best as possible. 

Though it wasn’t really the constant company that gnawed at him. Not really. It was the whispering. The constant tugging, and tearing at his skin, and his mind. It was almost as bad as when Jack talked over the conversations he was supposed to pay attention to. Except it was quieter and unending.

He’d lost count of how many times he stumbled and his heart leapt into his throat, thinking  _ this is it; this is the last jump. I’m not coming back from this one.  _ Only to land on his feet in varying states of disarray. 

Sometimes it was really nothing but simple clumsiness. Other times it was the power. It was the violet light that exploded from him when he landed, frying nearby tech and knocking unsuspecting passers by over.

He never knew which one it would be. And each jump was worse than the last. 

Well, that wasn’t true. 

Nothing rivaled the initial chaos of the Vault of the Traveler, but soon his teleportations, though they came with less frequency, came with an ever increasing list of traits. 

And so Rhys retreated on long walks, exploring areas of the crumbling skeleton of the space station left mostly unused, having meals with his friends turned caretakers in the morning and evening at the cafeteria.

Until he missed a breakfast because he slept in. 

It wouldn’t happen again. 

But then he found a data drive with proprietary schematics and he spent the afternoon into the night and even the next morning decrypting it.

And his check ins became fewer and farther between.

Even if he couldn’t leave the remains of the station in good conscience, he found he could disappear within it.   
  
  


A couple more weeks after opening the Vault of the Traveler, Sasha found Rhys sitting on a workbench in a deserted lab next to a half disassembled turret, hands inside a back panel. By now both their broken bones had healed, and for Sasha, it was as if nothing had happened. Rhys’ virulent violet tattoos however, hadn’t faded in the least.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” she said, walking into the long room. It was in a state of utter disarray. Desks aligned every which way, chairs overturned and shoved aside, and toolboxes and other pieces of equipment strewn haphazardly about. Only the area immediately around Rhys seemed to be clean and orderly. He looked up from the open panel, pausing his machinations.

“I-uh, yea,” he responded, removing his hands from the insides of the turret. 

“Athena and Janey left this morning. Couldn’t find you to say goodbye and you weren't answering your ECHO comm,” Sasha said as she pushed aside a few tools and hopped up to sit on the workbench next to him.     

“Oh... well, crap,” he replied, rubbing the tattoos on the side of his neck. 

“They said they’d see you at the wedding,” she added. 

“Yea, of course,” he agreed quietly. “They set a date yet?” he asked. 

“Nope,” Sasha reported. “They said they’d let us know as soon as they decided though.”

“Good, good,” Rhys said nodding and going mute. Sasha leaned forward a bit in an attempt to catch his eye. The movement did attract his attention and he straightened up, running a hand through his hair. “Sorry,” he said. 

“Listen, I know things have been kinda... rough lately, but if there’s anything we can do,” she said, pausing to look at him, though he wouldn’t meet her gaze. “You know we’re here, right?” she asked, bumping his shoulder with hers. His eyebrows shot up at the brief contact but came back down quickly enough. He opened his mouth to reply and but closed it shortly after. 

“Your friends, Vaughn, Yvette, really care about you,” she said and after a moment’s consideration. “Fiona and me too. This whole disappearing act isn’t like you.” 

“I know, I’m sorry. I’m just…” he finally replied. “Just trying to get this stupid thing to work,” he said, backhanding the turret tiredly. Sasha bent forward again to get a look at it, one of her eyebrows arching.

“What happened to it?” she asked. Several armor plates had been removed, wires, capped off and bare, protruded from the control panel he’d opened, and leaning closer she caught a distinct whiff of burnt metal and rubber. 

“It’s targeting components malfunctioned and a rakk swarm busted it up, as far as I can tell,” Rhys explained. 

“How did  _ rakks  _ do  _ that  _ kind of damage?” she wondered, eying the burst damage to the turret, and he shrugged. 

“No idea. But I saw them flying off, the little swooping bastards,” he replied and she simply studied him skeptically. “Thought I’d make myself useful and fix it but it’s… taking me longer than anticipated,” he admitted, running a hand through his hair again, the frustration evident in his voice and the tension in his shoulders.  

“Wow, hotshot tech CEO is having difficulties?” she goaded and he shot her his best pout, at which she laughed goodnaturedly. “I’m sure you’ll get it soon, hon,” she said. 

“Yea,” he agreed quietly. “Yea. Thanks,” he added before lapsing into silence again. 

After kicking her feet a few times, and pursing her lips in deliberation, Sasha spoke up again. 

“Fiona still wants you to be our team siren,” she said and Rhys let out a mix between a groan and a laugh. 

“Is  _ that  _ why you hunted me down?” he demanded with an exaggerated sigh.

“Not entirely,” she said with a hint of mischief in her voice.

“Oh?” Rhys asked, staring at a nearby toolbox. He froze, his breath caught in his chest, when he felt a featherlight kiss on his cheek. Stunned, he turned to look at her when she pulled away. A small smile danced upon her lips as she returned his stare with clever green eyes.

“I figured after, well, everything, a little kiss couldn't hurt,” she said easily with a shrug.

“Just… One?” Rhys managed to ask, his voice cracking under the forced bravado. Her grin broke wider at that, as laughter lit up those eyes.

“Don't get greedy on me, Hyperion,” she said, but leaned into him.

“Former Hyperion,” he breathed automatically before their lips met. 

Tentative at the start, he felt a pleasant warmth rush up his neck and into his cheeks as her lips relaxed, folding against his. She repositioned first, tilting her head and opening her mouth to nibble on his bottom lip, eliciting a strangled sigh as he angled the other way, mirroring her movements. He brought up a hand to cradle her cheek while he steadied himself with the other.

He felt her lips curl and his heart skipped a beat, launching itself into his throat, while his stomach did backflips, plummeting.

Falling.

Searing heat surged down his neck and arm, smothering the pleasant warmth, and he choked, jerking away and tumbling off the bench.

“W-what?” Sasha stuttered rigidly, blinking in painful surprise as he stumbled away, knocking into table and toolbox. “Oh!” she exclaimed, watching as his markings flashed and flickered.

He threw his hands out in front of him, winding his way haphazardly through the lab furniture. His organic hand glowed brighter and brighter in front of him.

“No! No nonono!” he cried and he fell.

“Rhys!” He heard her shout, and he fell to the floor by the door several feet away with an enraged yell. 

Violet arcs of lightning and wind burst forth from him, sending the nearest desks into the air and leaving them there. “Woah,” Sasha managed to gasp before the shockwave hit her, making her cringe upon herself at the tingling heat. The turret beside her exploded, showering her in sparks and making her yelp in surprise.

She hopped off the bench, brushing herself free of the little stinging embers.

“Damn it damnit damnitdamnitDAMNIT!” Rhys roared as the desks fell to the floor around him like some strange, staccato punctuation. His purple tattoos hissed and spattered, before dying down to a calm, quiet pulse, though he made no move to get up from where he knelt, panting angrily. 

Sasha ventured a few steps toward him.

“Don't!” Rhys yelled and she froze.

“Don't come near me!” he said, and she paused only a second more before taking another step. “It'll happen again,” he warned and she took another step toward him, past the toolbox. “It keeps - happening! I can't stop it,” he cried and Sasha put one foot down in front of the other. 

“It keeps flaring up,” Rhys continued, and she passed an overturned desk. “Every time I think I have it under control it does that! I can't fix the stupid turret because I keep exploding it!” he said, pounding his knuckles against the ground and feeling his bones cry out in protest. 

Sasha knelt next to him and regarded him sadly.

“So that's why you've been hiding,” she observed and he finally looked at her. Her frown was a knife in his gut.

“I-I-I should go,” he stuttered, getting to his feet and dipping away, almost falling over again. Sasha stood quickly, her face elongated with surprise.

“No! No, it's okay!” she quickly stammered. “No one expects you to have-” she motioned wildly at him, “all this figured out,” she said and his brows drew together as his nostrils flared. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked. He could barely hear her over the voices, and the sputtering of the exploded electronics behind him. Sasha returned his gaze sharply, her eyes darting this way and that as she searched his face.

“Nothing,” she said finally, looking at him imploringly, though everything about her was completely calm, and set. “We’re just worried about you, Rhys,” she said, attempting to touch his arm. 

“I kinda figured that out myself. You all keep hovering, all cheerful and happy and you think I don’t know that you’re all  _ worried  _ I’m gonna mess things up again?” he asked defensively, taking a step back, and she dropped her chin then, frowning too.

“That's not what I meant and you know it,” she said.

“No, so they send  _ you  _ in to get me to lighten up, right, move on? To talk some sense into me,” he said, the words coming out of his mouth before he tasted the bitterness and blood in his mouth, lingering from the impact of the aborted jump. Every inch of his skin was tingling, the marks white hot brands down his side, and the voices a windstorm in his brain.

Sasha’s anger dissipated immediately, confusion stretching her features.

“Rhys, I don’t know what you’re talking about; that's not why I-”

“Nooo, noooooo, it's not like your sister isn't  _ super excited  _ about having a super duper special siren dude on  _ her  _ Vault team, am I right,  _ hon _ ? As soon as I’m done being  _ difficult  _ we can go hunting, right?” he asked, surprised by the venom in his own words. “Well, joke’s on you; I  _ can't - control - it!” _ he spat.

“Rhys, you're being ridiculous,” she said, crossing her arms.

“Yes,” he agreed. “Completely, utterly, ridiculous. After all, who even just suddenly gets random shitty powers that threaten to tear the very fabric of time and space apart?!” he yelled at the ceiling. “Aren't superheroes supposed to just - figure things out like - immediately?” he asked angrily, dropping his gaze to hers.  “So what does that make me?” His voice went weak, as if the words had drained him, and not the power surge, or the brands seething in his flesh.

“Rhys,” Sasha started calmly. “Superheroes aren't real.  _ You _ are,” she said. “We don't have all the answers; we never do. But we'll play it by ear, okay?” she asked with a reassuring nod. Rhys covered his face with his hands taking a deep breath. The marks on his palm scalded his face, but not as badly as the ones carved there. His heartbeat roared in his ears, eventually drowning out the whispers. He rocked back on his heels, tossing his head back with a sigh.

“I-I'm sorry,” he said again, eyes closed.

“It's okay,” Sasha supplied after taking a deep breath of her own, painting a warm smile on her face as she uncrossed her arms. “You’ve been under a lot of stress,” she added. She thought for a moment as she stared at him, waiting for any reaction, but he remained still. “Come on, why don't we go grab a bite to eat?” she asked, but he only leveled his head with another heavy exhale, before training his eyes on the sparking turret.

“Nah, I gotta start over on that thing,” he declared in resignation.

“Come on,” she nudged, “it'll still be there when you get back. Take a minute to clear your head. Come back with a fresh start.”

“I…” he started to protest but when he saw her expectant grin he had to laugh, and ran a hand through his hair again, pulling the loose curls back from his forehead. “Yea, okay,” he gave in.

After shooting sidelong glances at her as they passed through the halls, Rhys finally mustered up the courage and briefly brushed his fingers against hers, before gently taking her hand. She looked at him in surprise, not unpleasantly, but with a quirked eyebrow. Rhys shrugged and smiled.

“It helps, doesn't it?” she asked. He must've looked lost because she continued. “Touching, physical contact? When you're about to do the thing? It's why shaking you worked back at the Vault,” she posited and he trained his gaze forward again, thinking.

“Oh, yea,” he said. “I guess it does,” he agreed without much conviction. 

“Though you did do the thing back there in the lab…” she remembered, puzzled. “Hm.” He had to agree. The way his stomach flipped was too similar to the falling feeling and it made his heart race. Or maybe that was because he was acutely aware of how nice it felt to be walking hand in hand. “Or maybe you just want to hold my hand, huh?” she asked slyly. He tilted his head to the side, unanswering. Swallowing, he decided he wasn't about to argue, and couldn't suppress the foolish grin threatening to finally crawl across his face. He almost laughed at himself, and the blush he felt across his face. What was he, twelve? 

He did have something nagging at him though, making his grin shrink.

“Just… One thing,” he said as they walked. “Please… don't call me hon.” She looked at him with mild surprise.

“I didn't think you minded nicknames?”

“I don't,” he quickly stated. “Just… Not that one. Or kiddo. Or pumpkin or cupcake,” he listed, the corners of his mouth downturning again.

“Sure thing, Mister Roboto,” she agreed and he smiled, shaking his head. 

“That one works, I guess,” he said. 

The Hub of Heroism was bustling with activity when they got there and wove their way to the area designated as the cafeteria and bar. The Children of Helios bowed away reverently as they passed and Rhys groaned.

“Hey, at least they aren't on the floor anymore,” Sasha pointed out and he did have to give her that. 

They’d only just sat down when a practically skipping Fiona joined them. She picked a piece of fruit off of Sasha’s tray.

“Hey!” Sasha protested but let it drop as her sister had already popped the bit of food in her mouth. 

“Oops? Sorry,” she said and her little sister rolled her eyes. “I didn’t interrupt a date or something, did I?”

“What? No,” Rhys stuttered while Sasha simply tilted her head forward. 

“Ha, ha, Fi,” Sasha droned before nudging Rhys in the side. “Don’t fall for her tricks; she’s just trying to bait you.” 

“Oh, right,” Rhys replied, shifting in his seat. “I knew that,” he laughed awkwardly. Fiona watched him a bit, her eyes studying him. “What; do I have something on my face?” he asked, reaching up to touch his cheek. He winced when he touched one of the tendrils of lightning there. “Well, other than the… purple mark-things…” he added lamely. Fiona shook her head, and apparently discarded whatever thought had occurred to her.

“No, but I’m glad you’re both here,” she said, resituating herself in her chair, folding one leg under her and leaning forward over the table, whipping out a large, folded piece of paper. “You will never guess what I got off this guy at the trading station,” she said. 

“Cash,” Sasha quipped before putting a forkful of food in her mouth. 

“A new hat,” Rhys suggested, holding up a bit of unidentifiable meat and examining it with undisguised disgust. Fiona’s back straightened at that as she glared, evaluating him, before resituating in the chair again.

“Wrong and  _ wrong _ ,” she said, unfolding the paper.  “A map!” 

“Don’t tell me…” Rhys groaned. 

“To a vault!” Fiona exclaimed with a grin. 

“Fi,” Sasha warned. “Ix-nay on the ault-vay.”

“Really? Pig latin?” Rhys asked, leveling a disbelieving glare at her. She smiled and shrugged helplessly. He shook his head and returned to his plate. “But no, if you’ve got some Vault you want to go investigate, go,” Rhys said. “Just leave me out of it,” he declared. Sasha looked at him, her forehead creasing just barely as she drew her lips to the side, contemplating. 

Fiona opened her mouth to say something else, but was interrupted by Vaughn protesting loudly. 

“The delivery is  _ short,  _ August,” he said, with a hint of an edge to his voice. 

“It wasn’t short when my people installed the things,” August said, his strides stilted as he struggled to shorten them to keep pace with the briskly, albeit much shorter, walking Vaughn. 

“Turrets don’t just get up and walk away,” Vaughn said and Rhys flinched, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. 

“Hey guys,” he called, and the two stopped, shifting their attention to the seated trio. 

“Oh hey, bro,” Vaughn greeted, his tone changing almost immediately. The two turned and approached, with August inspecting the group. 

“August is telling the truth,” Rhys said. 

“Oh,” Vaughn said, surprise plain on his face. He looked up at August at his side, who crossed his arms, and glared defiantly. “Sorry about that then.” 

“It’s fine I guess,” August replied before turning his attention to Rhys. “So mind tellin’ us where the missing turret is and how  _ you  _ know about it?” 

“In one of the labs,” Rhys stated, gulping. “I was out for a walk and noticed it’d been damaged so I thought I’d fix it. Didn’t think anybody’d notice before I put it back,” he said, glancing at his hands briefly. 

“Damaged?” Vaughn repeated. “How? By what?” 

“Rakks,” Rhys reported with an insistent nod, bringing his gaze back up to his best friend. 

“Rakks?” Vaughn repeated Rhys’ response again. “You’ve got to be kidding me; nobody told me any rakks had made it that close,” he stated, concern growing in his voice as he looked around at the open air hub as if he expected one to swoop down at any moment. Rhys’ lips were a thin line as he rubbed the back of his neck. 

“Yea, I - didn’t actually see them or anything. It just - it was pretty obvious,” he explained. Sasha eyed him with a frown, and August narrowed his eyes. 

“Well, we should probably double check; see if there are any others; inspect the rest of the turrets and,” Vaughn’s words were going almost faster than the rest could keep up. “Hey, would you mind helping? We could use your gun,” he asked, looking up at August again. The Pandoran thug regarded him for a moment before Vaughn sighed. “Yes, I’ll pay you,” he said. 

“Hang on, I’ll help too,” Fiona said, eagerly standing.

“Fiona, you stay and eat here for free; I’m not paying you,” Vaughn whined. She waved her hand at that. 

“Who said that’s why I’m helping?” she asked as she joined them. “Can’t I do something out of the goodness of my heart?” Sasha watched Rhys as he turned and stared off into the distance, distinctly not at the others.  

“Rhys,” she prodded, drawing his attention to her. “Is there something else you want to tell us?” she asked and his eyes widened. He opened his mouth to reply but shut it shortly. The other three stopped, turning back to him. 

“Everything okay?” Vaughn asked, taking another step back towards him. One of August’s eyebrows hitched up as he did the opposite. Rhys sighed, his skull tingling and the whispers tickling his eardrums. 

“No, yes, I mean,” he stuttered, taking another breath. “There weren’t… any… rakks,” he admitted, squeezing his eyes shut. “I was lying, okay?” Sasha frowned next to him, but said nothing as he rubbed his neck more, fingers tracing the glowing bolts trailing down there. “I had a bit of an accident.” 

“What? What happened?” Vaughn asked. 

“I  _ was  _ walking and then I fell and did the thing,” Rhys explained, his shoulders hitching up. “Teleported or whatever and the turret kinda exploded. I’m sorry. I’ll fix it.” 

“You  _ accidentally  _ exploded a turret?” August asked. “That thing was 15 feet up.” 

“Yea,” Rhys agreed. “It was… not easy getting all the pieces…” he laughed uneasily through his grimace. Vaughn sat down next to him. 

“It’s not a big deal, Rhys but… why lie, bro?” he asked and Rhys inhaled sharply, floundering, his gaze falling to the floor again. He ran a hand through his hair stiffly, sitting ramrod straight on the very edge of his chair. 

“I just… didn’t want to worry anybody anymore, okay?” 

“Rhys,” Sasha breathed, leaning closer, but his frown deepened, brows drew together, and head jerked slightly. The sudden movement made her sit back in surprise, but he wasn’t paying attention to her, she realized. 

He hissed and squeezed his eyes shut again as he grabbed the back of his head. “Rhys,” she said again as his tattoos flared. She grabbed his shoulder and he rolled them back, stretching his neck. 

“ _ Damn  _ it,” he growled and shot to his feet, breaking free of her hand.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Vaughn exclaimed, but Rhys was already several pounding steps away, his pace and his breathing increasing, the tattoos beginning to pop. 

“D-don’t-” Rhys said through clenched teeth. An arc of lightning erupted from his port, making him yelp, and stumble to the side in a flash of violet and white sparks. 

“Rhys!” Sasha shouted, bolting up, but he’d vanished, disintegrated into a flickering cluster of violet and white dots and sparks. 

A loud CRACK sent them, and everyone nearby scrambling. Some of the unsuspecting Children of Helios shouted in surprise. In a thunderous flash and cluster of lightning, Rhys slammed atop a nearby table, crushing the metal beneath him with a cry. A roar of wind crackling with violet lightning rushed out from the impact and the chairs jumped into the air. 

The furniture hung there as if held up by invisible strings, rotating slowly as tiny bolts danced around them, before the electricity dissipated and everything fell back to the floor. 

“Damn it!” Rhys yelled, grabbing at his knees and crumbling forward.  “Wow, it hurts,” he whispered, his forehead touching the ground.

“Rhys!” Vaughn called as the group hurried towards him. 

“I’m okay - I’m okay!” Rhys protested. “Listen just - would you just listen to me?” he asked. 

“Being around -” he started, waving his hands wildly, sending some of the Children of Helios scurrying, “people - makes it worse! I can’t focus on… not doing that… and talking and walking and eating and distinguishing between real whispers and not…” he rattled off, as he climbed gingerly off of the ruins of the table. 

Vaughn and Sasha drew up closer to him, but he stepped back, frowning. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just - I’m gonna go back to Atlas now. I think I have to,” he declared.  

“Are you sure?” Vaughn asked. 

“Yea, I just gotta figure this one out on my own, I guess,” Rhys said, straightening up. 

“If you’re sure… at least let me drive you there,” Vaughn suggested. Sasha wrapped her arms around herself, frowning. 

“Yea, okay,” Rhys agreed.

“You’re just… leaving,” Sasha stated, more than asked, with an emphatic shrug of her shoulders.

“Sasha, listen - you  _ saw _ ,” he said, like that explained everything. Her glare said otherwise and he sighed. “Why don’t…” he started, picking up one of her hands, and then the other, “Why don’t you and Fiona go look for that Vault, huh? You two don’t need me.” 

“And what about you? What if you get stuck … somewhere else? This’ stupid,” she said. She didn’t pull away but she didn’t squeeze his hands either.

“That could happen just as easily, scratch that, more easily here,” Rhys said and he tried to smile reassuringly, though his face hurt from the marks. “Besides, I’ve got a pretty good idea now of how to stay, well, I guess in the general area,” he added, glancing over at the destroyed table and scattered chairs. His thumb rubbed the back of her hand and, at that, she pulled away.

“Fine,” she said. “You do that.” 

“Sasha,” Rhys started, but winced, as a white pulse went down the cracks in his face. By then Sasha had already turned and was well past Fiona and August, who regarded the scene silently. August scratched his nose and glared, frowning, while Fiona looked from her sister, to Rhys, and back. 

“Sorry,” she told him, and ran after her sister.

“I’m sure she’ll come around,” Vaughn said from Rhys’ side. August crossed his arms, regarding the two former Hyperion employees. Rhys didn’t miss the glare, and let out a strangled laugh that devolved into a cough as he rubbed his neck again. 

“Something you wanna tell me, fancy feet?” he asked. 

“Not right now especially, no,” Rhys managed out.

“Uh huh,” August said. 

“I’m just gonna…” Rhys said, slowly backing away, before turning and stumbling over a trash can. “Go now.”  He spun around it, with Vaughn’s guidance, and hurried away.

“Yep, let’s get going,” Vaughn added. “Got a long drive ahead of us,” he said and scurried behind his taller friend. August watched them leave before looking back to the crumpled table. He shuddered and began to walk away as well. 

  
“And they think  _ I’m  _ dumb.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The saga continues and Rhys continues to be unable to catch a break. Sorry, bro. But there was some Rhysha fluff! Finally! Kinda! Ahhhh! 
> 
> Two more chapters and we'll have reached the thrilling (I Hope) conclusion! Although at this point I might have to make it three chapters because the next chapter is going on _forever_. 
> 
> Again, HUGE shout-out to my beta readers WindraDeadZed and kawaii-as-fcuck-bunddy. 
> 
> Come see me on [tumblr](http://arkemisia.tumblr.com/)! I'm always open to prompts, comments, and general fan girling. :)


	6. Worthy

Vaughn stayed at Atlas for a few days after he and Rhys arrived there. Together they double checked the facility’s systems, addressing any problems or inconsistencies that had cropped up since Rhys had last left it. There weren’t many things to actually fix, but Vaughn insisted going over everything, and despite everything, Rhys didn’t mind. 

In fact it was nice, just the two of them again. Sometimes when they were working on something together it was almost as if they were back in college and were working on another project, like nothing had ever changed.

And yet.

Finally, when there was nothing left to check, Vaughn reluctantly said his goodbye, and Rhys promised to check in via ECHO comm every so often. 

And Rhys was left alone again with the ghost facility he’d claimed.

With his hands on his hips, he surveyed his domain of empty workstations and grinned in determination. “Let’s do this,” he stated aloud to no one, and began pulling the pieces together again.  
  
  


Some weeks later, Rhys had made significant process with few distractions. He'd just screwed the final panel onto a small robot with rounded edges and a single tread, not unlike Gortys’, when his vision went blurry. He blinked several times only to notice the familiar hue crawling across the edges of the scene.

“No, no, no,” he stuttered, rearing back and immediately slapping himself in the face. He tripped over a chair and landed solidly on his ass.

Clear across the assembly room. 

A small violet wave of light drifted out away from him and sparks danced about. But he’d managed to avoid frying any of the machines elsewhere on the floor.

“Owww,” he whined as he rubbed his cheek. “This has  _ got  _ to stop,” he said, bringing his hand away from his face to stare at the flickering tattoos.

Rhys left the factory room floor the way it was and wound his way through the quiet facility. He brought his cybernetic hand up and began running diagnostics as he entered the bio-medical wing. He’d run these same diagnostics time and time before, getting his vitals, and cybernetic stats. His implants operated nominally, indicating no change. His pulse was fast and his blood pressure higher than it normally was, but he supposed that wasn’t surprising given the circumstances. 

“Who am I kidding?” he asked himself. He looked around the bio-med wing uncomfortably. He massaged his temples, careful of his port, and went over to a bench of supplies. “Damn it, I’m an engineer, not a doctor,” he groaned and then stopped. 

“Wait a minute…” he breathed, activated his ECHO eye, and began scanning around the room, eyes roving over the different pieces of equipment.

Centrifuge, magnascope, mass spectrometer. He pulled up the specs and instructions for each and hummed. 

Rhys brought up his hand again, looking from the glowing tattoos to the devices and back. A tray on another desk bore several medical instruments, scalpels, needles, and the like, abandoned but in vacuum sealed pouches. With a deep breath, he moved across the room. 

He picked up the scalpel and peeled its pouch open as he approached the mass spectrometer. He popped out the sample container and set it on the table, sitting down with a steadying breath. 

With a whine he clenched the scalpel in his mechanical hand and brought it up to the other. “Just a little scrape,” he whispered as both hands hovered over the open sample container. Squinting his normal eye shut and watching dutifully with his ECHO eye, he pressed the scalpel perpendicularly atop one of the marks and hissed. For a minute, he didn’t realize it but the violet glowing tattoo hissed right along with him as it burned against the metal of the scalpel. 

Dragging the metal across the violet trench in his skin turned out to be more difficult than he’d thought. Not because it was painful, which it was, searing hot jolts went up his arm when he pressed the scalpel harder, but the violet did not bleed; it could not be pierced. Instead it was as if he was trying to shave off the top of the metal table the sample container sat atop. Applying more pressure with a grimace, a few curling shavings peeled off the violet track, and he sat back with a heavy exhale. Spots swum in his vision and he realized he’d been holding his breath. 

More conscious of his breathing, he did this again several more times until there was a thin layer of the violet stuff at the bottom of the jar. He set aside the scalpel and looked at his hand. The normal skin was red and puffy around the area in the lightning bolt he’d been focusing on, but otherwise looked unaffected. He shook the hand a bit before picking up the sample container and holding it up to the light. 

The violet stuff was sharp, shining, and thin, almost like metal shavings or tiny shards of glass. He sealed the container and popped it into the device, punching in the commands his ECHO eye instructed him to, before sitting back. 

Rhys rubbed his hand for a minute, just listening to the machine as it did its thing. After it obviously wasn’t going to be finished any time soon, he brought up his robotic hand and dialed up the Children of Helios’ communications center. A face he vaguely recognized as the operator showed up on the display.

“Heyy,” Rhys started, “Are we at the point where you can actually say hello yet?” he asked the slack jawed face on the holographic display hovering over his cybernetic hand. “No? At some point you’re gonna have to tell me your name or I’m gonna make one up. You think on that. Now, would you do the usual and grab Vaughn for me?” he asked with an exasperated chuckle and waited as the operator disappeared from the display, leaving only a spinning chair. 

It was only a few minutes before Vaughn slid into view. 

“Hey bro,” he said, “how’re things?” 

“Oh you know,” Rhys said. “They’re going. Got some cool projects and stuff. Making some progress. Managed to avoid accidentally blowing one up earlier today so that was exciting.” Vaughn winced. 

“Teleported?” he asked. 

“Yuup,” Rhys replied. “Got me thinking though. Does Dr Clark have any records or readings or anything from the first week or whenever? I’d kind of like to see them, I think.” 

“You bet he does,” Vaughn said with a laugh. “He’s actually been giving me a hard time about letting you leave and been badgering me to get you to come back for more tests,” he said. Rhys looked at the spectrometer running behind the hologram awkwardly for a moment. He flexed his hand unconsciously before clearing his throat and returning his attention to Vaughn.

“Yea, thanks, but no thanks. If you could send the files my way, I’d appreciate it,” Rhys said. 

“Sure thing, bro,” Vaughn agreed with a mock salute. “You heard anything from the girls?” he asked. 

“Ah, no, it’s been pretty quiet out here,” Rhys replied, shaking his head. 

“Yea, apparently that vault didn’t pan out so well,” Vaughn said and Rhys sat up straighter. 

“They okay?” he asked quickly. 

“Oh, yea, they’re fine. Just ran into a bandit camp instead of a Vault. Probably safer actually,” Vaughn reported.

“Oh, well, that’s good I guess,” Rhys replied, rubbing his neck with his free hand with only the smallest wince.

“Yea, I guess they’re out doing odd jobs now looking for more clues,” Vaughn said. “Well,  _ real  _ clues,” he added with a smirk and a quickly dying chuckle. He was quiet for a moment before he went, “It’s good to see you, Rhys.” 

“Good to see you too, Vaughn,” Rhys replied automatically, though the smile stretching across his face was real. The throb in his hand made him clench it into a fist though and he glanced down. “Listen, I’ve gotta go,” he said. 

“Right, got a company to run,” Vaughn said. “Good luck, bro. I’ll go grab Dr Clark and have him send over those files ASAP.” 

“Thanks, I appreciate it, bro,” Rhys said. “Bye.” 

“Later, bro,” Vaughn replied and Rhys terminated the connection. He rubbed his forehead immediately after with a sigh. After staring silently at the whirring spectrometer, he brought his mechanical hand back up and dialed another number. One he should have dialed a while ago, he realized with a twinge of guilt. 

The white eyed scientist with double spectacles appeared in the hologram above his palm. 

“Goodness gracious, if it isn’t my boss,” came the frail, yet cheerful voice.

“Hey, Cassius,” Rhys replied. “Long time no see.” 

“Yes, I was beginning to wonder if you’d forgotten about me, which, I wouldn’t blame you for doing, but had hoped…”

“No, no, I didn’t forget you, buddy,” Rhys said, forcing out a laugh. “Just… had a bit of a complication back in the Vault,” he added and the older scientist’s eyebrow twitched. 

“Oh? In the Vault you say? You found it?” 

“Yea, and I kinda,” Rhys started but stopped, rubbing his forehead. “I don’t know.”    


“Might it have something to do with the fascinating trails of light on your face and hand, my boy?” Cassius supplied and Rhys froze, before taking his hand away again with a laugh. 

“Yes, it would. I appear to have… picked up something, somehow, and I was wondering if you might take a look at some files for me. I’ve seen a doctor over with the Children of Helios, and I’m doing some investigating myself but I thought it might be nice to get a second opinion and all that,” Rhys explained. 

“Oh? And you don’t… like this other doctor?” Cassius asked.

“It… to be honest. He kind of creeped me out.”

“Ah, yes, Hyperion doctors were never well known for their bedside manner,” Cassius replied and Rhys had to laugh. 

“I hear that,” he said, remembering his all too lengthy stint in the hospital wards back when he got his implants.

“As flattered as I am you'd turn to me, I feel obligated to inform you that I am not a medical doctor. I work in bioengineering.” 

“Which is a hell of a lot closer than software or mechanical engineering, which is all I got,” Rhys replied. “And you can still… Analyze.. Stuff… Right?”

“Yes, of course, I suppose I can analyze ‘stuff,’” Cassius said with a tiny, bemused smile. 

“Good,” Rhys said as his ECHO comm flashed again. “Because I just got the stuff from Dr Creepy,” he said. “Forwarding it to you now. This takes precedence over your ongoing projects as this is directly impacting my ability to work on rebuilding Atlas so… yea.” 

“Of course, of course, I only watch plants grow for a living and try to make them - nevermind,” Cassius rambled, nodding. 

“Ha, ha, okay, buddy,” Rhys laughed stiltedly, “I’m gonna hang up now. Good work on your stuff in my uh absence. I guess. Bye.” Rhys terminated the connection and pivoted in his chair to lean back against the lab table. 

“I really need to figure out what he actually does…” he remarked aloud.

Sometime later, the mass spectrometer finished its analysis and he sent those to Cassius as well, after he took half an hour trying to digest them himself. He was staring at his palm, or more specifically the violet cracks in it, when his ECHO comm pinged a neutral tone. He dropped one hand and raised the other, answering the call. 

“Ah, there you are,” Cassius’ face said, taking up the entire holo. He leaned back to a more normal distance.

“Hello, Cassius, what’s the word?” Rhys said.

“Word?” Cassius asked. “What wor-oh, hello, I suppose.” 

“Ahh, it was a figure of speech - just - did you have something to tell me? Some findings in regards to the data I sent you?” Rhys clarified and the older scientist bobbed his head.

“Yes, yes, it’s quite fascinating really. Even if it lacked the delicacy of taking the properties of a skag and splicing them into a - nevermind - the spectrometer readings most certainly aligned with those of pure, unrefined  _ eridium _ ,” he reported while Rhys nodded along numbly.

“Yea; that's what I thought that said but  _ how _ ? How did I end up with eridium coming out of me?!” Rhys demanded. 

“I-I-I don’t know; maybe if you told me a bit more about what happened in the vault?” Cassius asked. “Did you touch anything, ingest anything, have sexual relatio-” 

“What? No! No,” Rhys stammered. “I mean, there wasn’t anybody - it was just me and Fi - I like  _ Sasha _ , okay?”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry, it’s just standard medical procedure to ask,” Cassius quickly apologized. “I think,” he added. Rhys glared, before shaking his head and sighing. 

“Okay, okay, what were the other - right. No, I didn’t eat anything. A little bit of water maybe…” he said, recalling his rather frantic swim. “Some of it got in my port but-” 

“Ah HA!” Cassius cried, startling him. 

“What-what?!” Rhys asked. 

“Your port!” Cassius exclaimed. 

“What? What about it? You think getting water in my port did it? I don’t - I’ve done that dozens of times.” 

“Ah, but in Vault water?” Cassius asked. 

“Is… Vault water special?” Rhys asked, at which Cassius simply tilted his head this way and that. 

“I don’t know. It seemed like a logical conclusion,” Cassius said with a shrug. Rhys arched his eyebrow. 

“I - you made that up.” 

“Of course I did. Did you think I was an expert on Vault water and its effects on cybernetic implants?” Cassius laughed and Rhys glared. “Alright, alright, so you don’t think it was the water. Did you ingest or touch anything else?” 

“I didn’t  _ ingest  _ anything else, and I mean, I don’t think I touched anything else… I… stared at a bunch of stuff. Had to walk and swim around. But Fiona did all the same stuff I did and she’s not randomly teleporting all over the place and wearing eridium over half her body!” 

“ _ Teleporting _ , you say?”

“Er, I - uh - yea, I didn’t mean to say that part,” Rhys admitted. The scientist hummed from the other side of the ECHO comm. 

“Tell me more about this teleporting perhaps?” Cassius asked but Rhys was shaking his head before he finished. 

“I’d really rather not. Especially over ECHO net, but frankly, I wouldn’t wanna talk about it in person either,” he said. “Just… know that it happens. Sometimes. And I want to figure out a way to stop it,” Rhys explained and Cassius took a deep breath through his nose, nodding vaguely and looking off to the side in thought, searching. 

“Your blood tests looked a bit… off,” he remarked. “Maybe send me a control sample of your blood and next time you teleport send me another sample?”

“Blood sample? Eughh,” Rhys asked, shuddering. “Can’t I just send you the readouts from my implants?” 

“Oh, yes, I suppose that would work. Assuming it captures all your blood chemistry data,” Cassius replied. 

“It does; thanks,” Rhys stated.

“Maybe in the meantime some hair samples as well,” Cassius went on. “If the siren transformation has modified your genetic structure those would help. And a cheek swab...”

“Wait-wait-wait who said anything about a siren transformation?” Rhys interrupted. 

“Oh, well, I thought that was the obvious comparison? Vault, eridium, teleportation, all traits common with sirens,” Cassius replied easily. Rhys rubbed his face with his free hand, eventually covering his mouth and staring. He paused, something suddenly clicking, and he looked about rapidly, thinking. 

“Wait, sirens… eridium…” he muttered, straightening in his chair, staring at a nondescript spot on the wall. 

“Yes…?” Cassius prompted, drawing Rhys’ attention back to him. 

“Cassius, you’re a genius!” Rhys said with a wide grin. “I’ve got to go but remind me to give you a raise whenever we talk next!” he said, and terminated the call to go find some proprietary Hyperion schematics he hadn’t understood earlier. 

Elsewhere on Pandora, Cassius stared at the blank ECHO comm, blinking in surprise. 

“But you don’t  _ pay  _ me  _ anything!” _  
  
  


“Yea, thanks for nothing,” Sasha snipped several days later in a decrepit tavern as their latest contact slipped off the barstool and left. 

“This can’t be the right way,” Fiona said, her hands massaging her temples. 

“Oh, you mean going from town to town asking ‘does anybody know of any vault keys around here’ isn’t how it’s supposed to work?” Sasha asked without too much venom as she dropped her forehead against the bar. 

“Do you have any better ideas?” Fiona retorted and received no answer. They’d been over this at least a dozen times, after going to at least half that many settlements and canvassing them. Sasha lifted her head up just enough to rest her chin on her crossed arms atop the table. 

“Another round over here,” she called to the bartender and Fiona sighed.

“I think this job is going to make us alcoholics,” she moaned. 

“That wouldn’t be the worst side effect,” a voice called from behind them. Sasha and Fiona looked at each other briefly with narrowed eyes. Fiona gave just the tiniest shake of her head, bringing her right hand up to brush her hair out of her face and ready her concealed handgun. Together they turned around on their stools and froze in surprise. 

They didn’t recognize the woman in the worn gear, but the swirling tattoos down her chest and left arm spoke volumes.

“Good, you recognize me,” she said. “Or at least, what I am,” she added, standing easily with her hand on her cocked hip. “I’m Lilith, Leader of the Crimson Raiders, and you and your friends have been making a good deal of noise lately,” she explained guardedly. She regarded them coolly, her red hair falling in front of one eye briefly.  

“I don’t suppose you’re here to point us to a Vault, are you?” Fiona asked flippantly. 

“No, I’m not,” Lilith stated, though she almost smiled. She sauntered up to them just as the bartender served up the sisters’ drinks. Fiona grabbed hers and held it up in front of her. 

“Drink?” she asked and the siren’s gazed flicked to the drink momentarily, but only just. 

“Word has it you already found a Vault; why go looking for another one?” Lilith asked, ignoring the drink. 

“Your loss,” Fiona remarked before taking a sip of the drink and putting it back on the bar. 

“Yea, there wasn’t a lot of loot in that one,” Sasha stated. “Just a whole lot of trouble, and not a lot of reward,” she said and Fiona sent her an appraising side-long glance, but said nothing. 

“No, it seems you found something else,” Lilith said. “Word has it one of you came back out a siren,” she stated. “A  _ male  _ siren,” she added, her eyes hard. 

“Ah, about that…” Fiona started but trailed off momentarily. 

“Yea, about that,” Lilith interrupted. “That’s not how that works. Ignoring the whole gender issue, being a siren isn’t something you can just pick up, okay?”

“I never said he was a siren, okay?” Fiona replied and Lilith crossed her arms, staring. “To you,” Fiona specified and the siren maintained her gaze, dropping a shoulder and cocking a hip again. “Okay, I might’ve said he was a siren a couple times, but it was just a figure of speech. He’s got  _ abilities _ , okay?” Fiona retorted. “If it makes you feel any better, he vehemently denies the whole siren business,” she said. 

“You know where he is?” Lilith asked and the sisters went still. 

“Why?” Sasha asked, sharper than Fiona would have. Lilith uncrossed her arms and took a couple steps to the side, before returning, pacing. 

“I want to talk to him,” Lilith said heavily. 

“Okay, talk-talk or  _ talk- _ talk?” Fiona asked, finger gunning at the second phrase. Lilith put her hands on her hips and tipped her chin up. “Okay, see, here’s the problem. He’s kind of our friend, so it  _ kind of  _ matters,” Fiona said. That made the siren’s brows draw together. 

“He’s your friend,” she repeated, her eyebrows flicking up with the word. “I heard he’s Hyperion.” 

“ _ Former  _ Hyperion,” Sasha interjected.

“Right,” Lilith droned. “Someone who was handpicked by  _ Handsome Jack  _ to follow in his footsteps, someone who, as we speak, is secretly rebuilding Atlas; that’s  _ your _ friend?” 

“Hey, hang on, I don’t know what you’ve heard but the thing with Handsome Jack was… complicated,” Fiona protested. 

“He  _ accidentally  _ uploaded a Handsome Jack AI to his cybernetics,” Sasha argued. “Cybernetics he  _ ripped out  _ to get rid of Handsome Jack.” 

“And yes, he’s rebuilding Atlas but it’s not a secret or anything; being CEO of some crazy tech company’s always been a dream of his. He’s just… going through a rough patch,” Fiona contested, trailing off.

“Uh huh,” Lilith said. “And that’s supposed to make me feel better? That he’s actually a glorified Hyperion lackey with delusions of grandeur who got  _ possessed  _ by Handsome Jack and has now gone into hermit mode after acquiring ‘siren-like’ powers?” she asked incredulously and the sisters for a moment found themselves without a witty retort. 

“Well,” Fiona went, “when you put it that way of course it sounds bad.”  

“Yea, so why don’t you tell me where he is so we can go have a little chat,” Lilith said.

“Okay,” Sasha replied quickly and Fiona jerked to the side to look at her. “But we have to take you to him,” she said, shifting to lean against the bar and tilting her head back. The siren arched an eyebrow and pursed her lips for a moment, considering, before nodding slightly.

“Alright,” she agreed. She looked at the drinks on the bar behind the sisters and smiled. “Don’t get too drunk; we leave early,” she said, before turning away and leaving the bar without another word.   
  
  


The main entranceway to the Atlas facility was much the same as they remembered, yet completely different. The floor tiles and walls were pristine; cleaning bots roamed about in happy patterns and a receptionist’s desk stood in front of the viewport to the defunct Gortys project’s housing, occupied by a still robot. 

The three women approached it cautiously. 

Before they could speak a word, the robot whirred to life, reorienting its head towards the nearest of them, Sasha. 

“Greetings, citizen! Welcome to Atlas,” it spoke in its tinny, cheerful voice.  “This location is under construction. Please leave a message at the desk and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can,” it said. Sasha looked to Fiona and Lilith, frozen in place under the friendly scrutiny of the robot. Fiona made a face and shrugged. Lilith was no help. 

“Uh, yes, we’re here to see Rhys?” Sasha asked with a charming smile. When the robot delayed in answering Sasha looked to the others briefly before adding “Uhh, I... don’t actually know his last name…” The robot paused for a bit longer and then whirled around the desk. 

“Of course! Please, follow me,” it said and rolled down one of the hallways. After throwing a surprised glance at the others, Sasha trotted after the robot speeding away. Fiona and Lilith followed close behind. 

They passed through a third set of doors and an immensely hot wave of air washed over their faces staggering them. The faint strumming of an electric guitar and bass echoed through the large factory floor, almost to the point where Sasha could feel the beat in her chest. 

Row upon row of machines in varying states of assembly hung from tracks along the ceiling, and she couldn’t help but gasp at the magnitude. 

“Woah,” Fiona breathed at the line of robots, vehicles, turrets, guns, and other miscellaneous machines. Behind them Lilith made an unsurprised disapproving grunt. 

However when they exited the far end of the rows, Fiona snorted, Sasha strangled a laugh, and, after a disbelieving double take, Lilith stared incredulously. 

Rhys had his head in the access panel of some sort of vehicle while he stood atop some scaffolding, shirtless.

Apparently his normal shirt and vest somehow added bulk to his lithe frame, because his sinewy torso was actually thinner than Sasha had thought. His hip bones protruded just above the belt as he stretched, reaching farther into the vehicle. 

But more surprising than his state of undress were the violet cracks scrawled all along his left side, all along his arm, shoulder, and rib cage, sprawling down his stomach and disappearing past his belt. Under the cracks were elegant, artistic blue tattoos, curling and extending across his chest and arm. But the violet marks glowed softly, cracks amongst the ink on his skin in the light of the large assembly room.

“Okay then,” Fiona said and cleared her throat loudly. Rhys jumped and a loud thud resounded from inside the vehicle. He ducked out of it, crouching up on the scaffolding to look down at them. Panic immediately overcame his face as he yelped, and toppled over the side of the scaffolding, falling the few feet to the floor. “Oh!” Fiona squeaked, as both she and Sasha went to move forward and help. But quickly they realized it was in vain and pulled up short, wincing and drawing a sharp breath. 

A beep and a buzz sounded, violet tattoos flared white briefly before flickering back down, and Rhys hit the ground with a solid THUD. The sisters cringed.

The fall couldn’t have been too bad, for he immediately scrambled to his feet and wrapped his arms around his chest, sticking his hands in his armpits as he rounded on his visitors. 

“Wow, I was  _ not  _ expecting company today,” he exclaimed. “Hi!” he said with forced laughter. He turned his attention to the robot, his smile tight. He quickly whipped his cybernetic hand out in a wave and the music stopped as he stuck the hand back in his armpit.

“Uhh, haha, Betty…? Why didn't you announce that we had guests?” he asked in a strained cheerful voice.

“Betty?” Fiona asked, looking at the small receptionist robot. Rhys shrugged his shoulders with a nervous chuckle, arms still wrapped tightly around his chest. She paused, noticing something strange: a cybernetic collar with small flashing indicator lights, several green and one amber, wrapped around his neck. 

“Good afternoon, Mister Rhys! Some ladies here to see you, sir,” the little robot Betty said and Rhys shut his eyes with a groan.

“On the PA system?” he clarified with some exasperation. The speakers in the walls crackled.

“Good after-” 

“I meant before you brought them in!” Rhys interrupted the robot’s announcement. The robot didn’t appear to have an answer to that and Rhys dragged a hand down his face. “Just-go get us coffee or something, okay?” he asked with another wave of his hand before returning it to his chest. “And a shirt!” he yelled after her, though the little robot did not respond. 

“Ohh, I am so reprogramming you later,” he grumbled under his breath. He noticed them staring and he seemed to fold in upon himself, hunching his shoulders.

“What? The climate control is on the fritz and it’s hot in here,” he protested.

“So instead of fixing it you run around half naked?” Fiona asked. 

“The maintenance bot is on it!” Rhys retorted. “Besides usually there’s no one to complain about it so just-” he stopped himself mid-sentence with a sigh. “You know what, nevermind. Let me just go grab a shirt real quick,” he said and turned to walk away but found Lilith moving to intercept him. 

“Okay, I guess the shirt can wait,” he said. He looked over to the Fiona and Sasha. “Gonna introduce me to your friend?” 

“What  _ are  _ you?” Lilith asked incredulously before either could answer. She squinted as she studied him.

“I’m gonna go out on a limb and say you’re a siren, right?” he asked, flicking a finger gun at her. Her eyes fell to his hand, and the glowing tattoos on it  She tilted her head in fascination. 

“I was kinda hoping you’d have a better idea,” Rhys replied as she started to circle him. “I’m just a - just a dude, a hacker, an engineer,” he started. “Who happens to now have a… teleporting problem,” he added as she finished her round about him. 

“You’re not a siren,” she stated and he refrained from rolling his eyes, but barely. 

“Yea, I kinda figured that out myself,” he remarked dryly. 

“But these are -” she started, staring at the tattoos, but abruptly stopped, her eyes widening as she looked at the collar around his neck. “What is that?” 

“Oh this?” he asked, one hand flying to the device. “It’s, uh, a regulator,” he explained. 

“That’s Jack’s tech,” Lilith said, her voice going hoarse and her glare intensifying. Rhys wilted a bit under her scrutiny. 

“It’s… former Hyperion tech, yea,” he admitted. “But I modified it a bunch; it kinda stung like a bitch initially,” he said. 

“Yea,” Lilith laughed bitterly. “I know.” 

“Okay, um, I’m sensing a bit of hostility here,” Rhys observed.

“Why do you wear it?” she asked and he shifted on his feet. 

“Because I, well, I can’t control when I teleport It just happens randomly, and when it does happen, it’s pretty… explosive,” he explained. “And that wasn’t a euphemism for anything, so just, uhh, okay, nevermind,” he attempted the joke but his smirk disappeared at her glare. “Can I please go put on a shirt now?” 

“Your tattoos,” Lilith said, ignoring his protests while steering the conversation and pinning him with her gaze, “they’re eridium.” 

“Yea, I figured that one out myself too,” Rhys said rubbing his neck. 

“How did you fuse so much eridium into your body?  _ Why  _ did you do it? How didn’t you  _ die _ ? _ ”  _ she demanded.

“I… have no idea what you’re talking about?” he cried. “I’ve never… fused with… any eridium, or whatever.”

“It’s true,” Fiona stepped in. “At least, I think. The marks first showed up in the Vault. Randomly. All he did was scan a chest,” she explained.

“A chest made of eridium,” Sasha pointed out as Lilith looked from Rhys, to one sister, then the other.

“A chest made of eridium…” she repeated in wonder. Her stare went back to Rhys. “Show me,” she said. 

“W-what? I don’t exactly have the chest - it kinda disintegrated or something - I don’t know. I wasn’t really able to pay much attention at the time.” 

“Your power,” Lilith clarified. “Teleport for me.”

“I’d really rather not… stuff tends to explode, and it feels all funny and kinda stings and-okay okay,” he protested in vain. “But can we do it outside? I don’t want to destroy any more prototypes,” he asked. She seemed to consider him for a moment before nodding. 

“Alright, and get a shirt while you’re at it,” she said, letting him lead them back out of the facility, swinging by his living space to don a shirt once more.  
  
  


They stopped some ways away from Old Haven and Lilith prodded Rhys then. “Go on,” she said and he gulped. 

“Okay, um, might want to step back,” he said as he tentatively reached up to his collar. The three women complied and he pressed the toggle, turning all the lights to a dull shade of red. The Vault Hunters watched expectantly for a moment. 

“Well?” Lilith asked, when nothing happened. Rhys looked around, lifting one foot up off the ground as if he’d stepped in something, before tentatively putting it back on the ground. 

“I don’t, haha,” he laughed nervously. “I can’t exactly do it on cue yet,” he said. “Just give me a minute,” he said as he started pacing erratically.

Brown and gold eyes flashed about the Pandoran wastes as he tugged at the collar of his shirt, taking exaggerated steps as he went this way and that. 

“This is ridiculous,” Sasha said. “Look, you’ve seen him; he’s not a threat, okay?” she added and that made him stop, spinning back towards them. 

“Wait, threat? Who's a threat?” he asked. Lilith crossed her arms. 

“I have yet to make up my mind,” she replied. 

“And what - is that why you’re here?” he asked, leaning forward. “To determine whether or not I’m a threat and what?  _ Kill  _ me?” he asked. “And you brought her here?!” he demanded. 

“We brought her here so you’d have backup if she  _ did  _ attack you,” Sasha retorted. “Which you wouldn’t have if she made it here on her own.” 

“Oh,” he replied lamely, rubbing and stretching his neck. 

“Usually when you have a plan like that, you aren’t supposed to tell the person you plan on ganging up on,” Lilith said over her shoulder to Sasha, who simply shrugged. 

“This is,” Rhys started. “This is ridiculous. I’m just - I’ve been sitting here, minding my own business, and you come here, drag me out of my factory, giving me orders and now threatening to  _ kill  _ me?” he exclaimed, his voice growing louder. One of the cracks in his face flared, a tendril of light sputtering out from it but receding immediately, as if sucked in by a vacuum. Lilith’s eyes widened and her nostrils flared almost faster than the eye could see before she recomposed herself.

“In my experience, power hungry corporate assholes never mind their own business for long,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. Rhys brought up an accusatory finger. 

“Okay, you know what,” he started but then his face immediately stretched with shock as his tattoos flared white, drawing all attention to his hand, and he simply went “Whoops.” In an explosion of violet lightning and sparks, he sunk into the ground, disappearing into little motes of light before he was up to his ankles.

“Oh!” Sasha exclaimed, taking a step forward, as they looked around. In a moment, a thunderous crack made them duck and turn to the side to see a bright flash of violet and white light as Rhys fell to the ground out of nowhere. A shockwave of wind and violet crescents of electricity rolled away from the impact, and it almost felt like the very ground beneath her feet lurched to the side. Dust rose from the ground all around him, hovering in mid air, purple lightning bolts dancing amongst the particles. Rhys clutched the ground desperately, his eyes wide and white, as he gasped for breath through clenched teeth. 

“Rhys!” she called and saw him blink as if trying to clear his vision as the dust continued to lift into the air around him. With a heavy, shaking hand, as if struggling against restraints, he reached up and pressed the button on his mechanical collar. The indicator lights flashed a furious sequence of amber and red, and a rapid series of beeps accompanied by a deep buzzing sounded, sending Rhys lurching forward with a stifled yelp. The buzzing continued until the lights flickered one by one to green, and the marks in his skin sparked, sputtered, and faded into a regular purple pulse.

Eventually he relaxed, and threw his head back, taking a deep breath, his eyes wide and unfocused, but brown and gold once again. He blinked several more times, just breathing, before turning a lazy gaze to the Siren.

“How was that?” he asked, laboriously climbing to one knee, and then using it to brace himself the rest of the way up to a staggering, standing position. “Because I will not be doing that again.” 

“Fascinating,” Lilith said, her eyes roving over the markings hungrily. “Turn off your regulator again,” she commanded. 

“What - I - why?” he stuttered, blinking and squinting harder. “I just said I wasn't gonna do it again. Do you know how much it hurts?” Sasha and Fiona watched the siren closely from either side of her. 

“Because I have an idea,” she replied simply. “But I have to try something before I can be sure. And that requires you turning off your regulator,” she explained. Rhys looked to the sisters, who shrugged, and he swallowed, shaking his head as if trying to wake up, before slowly reaching up to the collar. 

“Fine,” he whined quietly. “I’m gonna regret this, aren’t I?” he asked, as he pressed one of the many buttons there once again. 

“Possibly,” Lilith responded, bringing up a hand. “Just try to stay still. And don’t teleport,” she said. 

“What,” Rhys was barely able to squeak before the siren in front of him started glowing and he went rigid beyond his control. Her entire body transformed, light shining from her skin as she became ethereal, and in front of her, the violet lightning shaped marks inscribed in Rhys’ flesh flared brilliantly. 

Bolts of white hot lightning erupted from his port to dance down his body and arc to Lilith’s outstretched quivering hand as, slowly, their heels lifted off the ground, and then their toes, until they were floating freely in the air, wind starting to whip around them.

Sasha and Fiona shielded their eyes against the searing light and stinging dust. Squinting through tears from the gusting wind, Sasha could just make out the glowing figures in the newly formed, billowing clouds of dust. 

The violet white marks scrawled across Rhys’ skin flowed as furiously as pinned snakes, writhing, expanding, and gouging new pathways through his flesh. His eyes were wide and white, and his teeth clenched shut in a silent scream and for a moment... Fiona was back in the violet caverns again, frantic and helpless.

“Stop it!” Sasha shouted from beside her, bringing her back to reality, as the spiraling dust storm crackled with violet lightning and threatened to blow them away. “Stop it! Can’t you see it’s hurting him?!” she yelled. The siren, her features obscured by the violet energy, nearly translucent, turned her face to them, rooting them for a moment with her terrific gaze. 

But her hand remained, shaking and jerking, but steadfast, violet bolts of energy binding the two together.

“Hey! You heard her!” Fiona yelled over the wind. A strangled cry finally managed to leak out of Rhys’ clenched teeth, and he took desperate breaths through his nose, as if there wasn't enough air in the world, drawing everyone's attention back to him. 

Sasha started forward then, just when an extraordinarily loud bolt of lightning crackled between the two bright figures, and the storm clouds rolled apart to reveal the Vault door once again. Lilith turned her head towards it then, away from the sisters, though her hand remained in place, pinning Rhys in midair.

Her opaque eyes widened but she said nothing else, instead dropping her hand, severing the connection; instantly Rhys screamed, and the lightning dust storm went wild. 

Lilith was sent flying backwards as a fresh shockwave erupted from him as he felt to the ground, tendrils of electricity lashing out uncontrollably with wind surging forth in violent gusts.

“The-the thing! The regulator!” Fiona yelled over the storm.

“I got it!” Sasha said and dashed forward, only to be thrown back by a fresh blast laced with lightning. She fell back on Fiona, who stopped her from tumbling head over heels. “Give me a push!” Sasha shouted, and her sister complied. After a quick sprint, with no additional gusts to stop her, Sasha reached him.

She grabbed onto his arm and he choked out a fresh wail, while she chanted “I'm sorry! I'm sorry!” and drew closer. Looking at the collar, she came to the panicked realization that there were several buttons.

“I-I don't know which one!!!” she cried.

“Is there an on button?” Fiona replied.

“They aren't labeled!” Sasha shouted.

“I don't know! Press them all!” Fiona screamed over the wind.

“That seems like a  _ really _ bad idea!” Sasha screamed back. Another bolt peeled off of one of the markings on his neck and made her flinch, her hand tingling. 

“Sasha!” Fiona urged.

“I know!” Sasha replied, studying the collar. The row of buttons flashed erratically, each a dull, barely lit red. Except for the one on the left end of the row. That one flashed blindingly bright red and Sasha gasped, before hurriedly pressing it.

Before she'd even pulled her finger away the lights on the buttons started frantically flashing between red and amber and the collar itself began to vibrate and hiss. Rhys’ back arched less as he shifted forward a bit with a gasp; several low, angry beeps sounded over the high pitched rapid ones, hissing pops following each of the blaring beeps. 

His eyelids drooped. The white in his marks pulsed and surged toward the collar, filling the metal seams and fading, until the marks glowed a steady violet. The wind gave one last blow and a final bolt snapped from his temple, before the Vault door disappeared; the dust and air stilled, and Rhys slumped forward into Sasha's arms, eyes half open but unseeing.

“Rhys? Rhys!” she called, shaking him a little. “Oh my god, I think I killed him; Rhys!”

“Relax; I can see him breathing from here,” Lilith replied, before putting a hand to her forehead. “Ohh, I should not have done that,” she muttered, shutting her eyes with a grimace and swaying on her feet.

“What the hell?!” Fiona demanded and whipped out her pistol. “I hope you got what you wanted because there is  _ no way  _ we're letting you do that again!”

“Easy there, hat lady,” Lilith said, slowly opening her eyes and dropping her hand. She took a deep breath and stretched backwards, her hands on her hips. “Yea, I think I figured it out,” she said, looking over to where the Vault door had just been.

“Well?” Fiona prodded, lifting her gun a little in a wave. “Gonna enlighten us?” she asked, while Sasha pulled Rhys closer into her lap, turning him a bit onto his side.

“Yea, sure,” Lilith said. “He’s the goddamn Vault Guardian.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE REVEAL! And here is why there's the "kinda" in the tags right after "siren rhys" haha. I kind of... heavily modified and tweaked a bunch of in game things/lore to make them fit. Hopefully it makes some kind of sense. It will be discussed a bit further in the next chapter. Here is where I really wish my understanding of BL lore was stronger, so please forgive me. 
> 
> We're in the home stretch! One chapter to go!! Thanks to the WindraDeadZed again and thank all of you readers, for your views, kudos, and comments! <3


	7. Don't

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said this was going to be the last chapter but - uh - surprise! It's not. There are three more. And a brief epilogue.  
> Fair warning: this chapter is short. The next three are not.

With a decent amount of groaning and stumbling, the sisters hoisted the gangly, passed out CEO up and managed to get him back to the Atlas facility. The chipper robot Betty was waiting for them at the desk with a serving tray of coffees and a garish pinstripe shirt. With a strained, polite smile, Fiona convinced the robot to take them, and her creator, to his living quarters.

The wide open hallway the robot led them down appeared to be a part of a larger residential ward, but it was dark, and though clean, seemed to lack the brightness of the areas of the facility closer to the entrance. The lights in the small apartment flickered on automatically as they entered. They bypassed the kitchenette, living and dining space and deposited Rhys on the neatly made bed. The little robot slid the tray of coffees onto a low table in front of a sleek couch and returned the shirt to a closet stocked full of a wide variety of clothes that made the sisters trade amused glances before the robot closed the door.

Lilith found an armchair in the living space and claimed it, while the sisters explored their surroundings after the robot departed. Fiona opened the closet and shook her head, smiling, while Sasha took a sip from one of the coffees and gagged a little.

“It's cold,” she said when Fiona stared.

“Good to know,” Fiona replied.

“How long does it usually take for him to wake up?” Lilith asked from her armchair. Fiona shrugged.

“It took a couple days last time,” she replied. “But I really hope he wakes up sooner than that because Vaughn did a lot of the actual… taking care of him last time,” she added while making a face. “We kinda just took turns sitting with him.” Sasha sat down on the bed next to him and tilted her head as she studied his face. 

“He looks better this time though; no broken nose,” she observed as she looked closer. Her eyes drifted to the collar at his neck and the row of green lights, some solid, some blinking, and one amber. “The status… lights… things… are mostly green though, so that's good right?”

“I guess?” Fiona shrugged and Lilith groaned as she leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. 

“We'll just have to wait,” she said, and they settled in to do just that.  
  
  


Sometime later that day Rhys began to stir, his breathing breaking out of the regular rhythm of unconsciousness with periodic gasps and a snort, his eyes twitching beneath his eyelids. He groaned and turned his head and both sisters dropped the gadgets they'd been dueling with to cross the small apartment to the bed. Sasha resumed her spot on the side of the bed, watching, as he came to.

The widened violet marks flashed a bit, but the collar beeped and buzzed and the hot white calmed back to the undulating violet. Rhys brought an unsteady hand to his face to cover his eyes.  

“Might not want to get too close,” Fiona warned, drawing Sasha’s attention.

“Oh, right,” Sasha said, her eyebrows raised, as she scooted back a bit on the bed. Lilith eyed them oddly but another groan cut her off. 

“Wherssat?” were the first semi coherent words Rhys managed to slur out. 

“Rhys?” Sasha asked, leaning in a bit again. When he didn’t respond she continued. “It's Sasha. You're at Atlas, with me, Fiona, and Lilith. Do you remember anything?”

“Mmm?” he moaned as he lifted his hand a bit from his heavy lidded eyes to his forehead and tried focus on her. “Sh’sha, what're you doin’ here?” he mumbled, before his hand dropped to the side of his head onto the pillow with a soft thump. “You're pretty,” he added before she could respond and without transition, making her sit up straighter in surprise. 

Sasha’s brows drew together, the corners of her mouth curling up, as she looked at him closer and smiled in dawning comprehension.

“Rhys, are you high?” she asked.

“R’ly… Pretty. With the… Hair. And. G’n an’ ssshhh…”

“Oh my god, how high  _ are _ you?” she laughed.

“Ehh,” he sighed almost merrily, lifting his hand up again.

“Well, that's different,” Fiona remarked.

“I take it this didn't happen last time?” Lilith asked.

“No, he was distinctly less happy. With more staggering and puking,” Fiona replied. Sasha ducked as his hand slowly dropped back down, half heartedly reaching for her and nearly beaning her on the top of the head.

“Woah there, Hyperion,” she said, catching his hand and helping it back to the bed.

“I… like you,” he muttered and Sasha patted the back of his hand while Fiona laughed in the background. “Lotsss.” 

“I know you do, Mister Roboto,” she assured, still chuckling herself. She looked back to her sister with a smirk. “Gosh, a part of me  _ really  _ wants to mess with him right now, but another part of me is kinda concerned, you know,” she said but Fiona shrugged.

“He'd probably answer  _ any question  _ we asked right now though,” Fiona suggested and Lilith looked at them both before shaking her head. Rhys chose that moment to utter some garbled nonsense. “Though the answers  _ may or may not  _ make sense…” Fiona amended.

“There, that's the concerning bit,” Sasha said. “What if that just - I don't know - finally short circuited him?” she asked and he sloppily turned his head away as if to prove her point.

“Sash, if he can survive forcibly uploading Handsome Jack into this brain, five hundred blows to the head, tearing his cybernetics out just to replace them, and then all this crazy Vault Guardian teleportation electric mumbo jumbo crap until now… I'm pretty sure he's gonna be fine,” Fiona assured.

“Yea, you're… you're right,” Sasha said taking a steadying breath, her words more confident than her voice. He turned his head back towards her and lifted his other hand.

“Hi,” he slurred and she had to laugh again despite the tension stiffening her shoulders.

“Hi Rhys,” she said. “Why don't you take a nap, huh?” she suggested.

“Nnnot tired…” he said, but his drooping eyelids disagreed. Within moments his mouth slowly fell open and his breathing steadied again into the slow, deep pattern of a restful slumber. 

“Ha, sure you're not,” Fiona quipped

“Wow, that was like the ultimate power of suggestion in action right there,” Sasha said. From her chair, Lilith sighed and got up, making towards the kitchenette.

“If we're going to be stuck here while he sleeps it off I'm raiding his fridge,” she said and the sisters hesitated for a moment before the grumbling in their stomachs prompted them to eagerly follow suit.  
  
  


Eventually, sleep overcame them all. Rhys occupied the only bed (and drooled all over himself and its pillow - a sign he surely must be fine, Fiona pointed out), Lilith curled up in the armchair and the sisters each took up a half the sleek couch. 

 

Rhys ran a hand nervously through his hair as he waited outside the door to Handsome Jack's office. It was quiet, save for the breathy hissing and whispers he heard but could not find the source of.

“Come on in, cupcake; I'll be right with you,” boomed the deceptively friendly voice, and the doors opened before him. His feet carried him towards the monumental desk on the dais. 

Handsome Jack sat as easily as ever in his golden chair, rambling to someone through the ECHO comm as Rhys sat in the chair opposite him. Rhys did his best to make himself small and unobtrusive, but couldn't help scanning the surface of Jack’s desk. 

Every so often his gaze flitted up to the man himself.

Jack caught him staring once and winked deviously, not missing a beat in his unintelligible conversation. Rhys’ heart stopped and he threw his gaze back to the desktop as he tried to will away the chill so cold it burned that threatened to overwhelm him, blossoming from the base of his skull. 

Eventually his eyes found the golden hand jutting up from the desk and he stared at that then. His eyes narrowed in confusion. For it was no longer gold.

It was violet.

A violet hand of  _ crystal _ that seemed to call for him. To  _ scream _ for him. 

His heart and and sour bile rose into his throat as he hesitantly drew his gaze lower. And lower. Away from the desk and back upon himself. To the armrest of the chair he sat in, to which he clung for dear life. 

Or so he thought. For in fact: he had no hand. Empty space stared back at him where his left hand should be.

Panicked, he looked to his right to see the mechanical arm frozen but present, metal digits digging into the armrest, and refusing to let go.

“Isn't it marvelous, Rhysie baby?” Jack called, and Rhys jerked his gaze up to see Jack standing now. Jack leaned over the solid eridium hand, the violet appendage frozen in a desperate grasp at nothingness. “Pure eridium,” he remarked with an impressed laugh. 

“You may not like it but,  _ wow _ , are you something special,” Jack added as he rounded the table, gaze boring into Rhys now, pinning him. “Run as far and as fast as you want, kiddo,” he said as he moved to tower over Rhys, who still found himself completely immobile in the chair. 

He couldn't move, couldn't speak; his entire body felt like it was made of lead, poured into the chair and left there for good. 

“Hide, if you prefer, you spineless sack of skag crap,” Jack continued, smiling, as he wrapped a hand around Rhys’ neck. The voices roared in Rhys’ ears, along with his frantic heartbeat. He couldn't breathe as Jack brought his other hand to bear and grabbed a fistful of Rhys’ shirt.

“But there's no escaping  _ this _ ,” he hissed and tore open Rhys’ shirt in one swift motion to reveal a monstrous sight: Rhys’ entire left side was encased in, no,  _ replaced _ with jagged chunks of solid eridium... fused and pieced together into some mockery of a human form.

Never in his life had Rhys wanted to scream so badly, but he found himself completely and utterly mute as his vision went violet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, so originally this story was going to run to seven chapters... but as I started filling in the rest of the "final chapter" it just kind of kept going. And going. And going. I've updated the number of chapters accordingly and I hope you enjoyed this chapter despite its shortness. Thanks for bearing with me!


	8. Atonement

Sasha immediately realized something was different when she awoke. For one: the lights were off. The night before, they couldn't for the lives of the three of them combined figure out how to disable the automatic lights. Every time one of them moved, the lights popped back on. 

But this time, as Sasha shifted on the sofa while she woke, it stayed dark. She turned around slightly to try and look to the bed, blinking in the darkness.

The bed was unoccupied: the blanket and sheets disturbed somewhat but not much. She straightened up and turned around completely then as she looked about the small living quarters. A faint light leaked out from the crack between the door to the bathroom and its frame and she got up to tiptoe to it. 

She knocked on the door softly and was greeted by a faint yelp and a clatter.

“Rhys? Everything okay?” she asked quietly.

“Yep, yep, everything's fine,” Rhys quickly replied, his voice muffled.

“Really?” she asked. “Because the way you just said it sounds like it's not.”

“Yes, I just - hang on,” he said and the door slid open to reveal a slightly disheveled and somewhat distressed, but otherwise normal looking Rhys. His cybernetic hand dropped from a wave to join his other hand in the task of buttoning up his shirt. “Morning, Sasha,” he said in a high voice with a weak smile and a cough. “Hope I didn’t wake you. Sleep well?” She regarded him in disbelief.

“Wow, you're surprisingly chipper all things considered,” she said.

“Haha, I guess?” he agreed. “I don't… really remember much, honestly. Mostly just a… bad dream,” he admitted, taking a step back from the door to lean against the sink. “What happened… again?” 

“Lilith made you do the teleporty thing and then used you to open the Vault of the Traveler but  _ then _ you were stuck in the screamy stage again like when you first came  _ out _ of the Vault, so I pressed the brightest button on your collar and you passed out,” she reported in a well organized rush. Rhys’ eyes seemed to glaze over as his brain caught up with her words, and then he shook his head. 

“Wait, what?” he finally asked and she tilted her head. 

“Which part are you unclear on?” she replied. 

“I-the using me to open the Vault bit, I think,” he said, screwing up his face as he thought about it. 

“Oh, well, Lilith hasn’t really explained too much about that other than apparently you’re the Vault Guardian now. Definitely  _ not  _ a siren,” she explained with what she hoped was a reassuring smile. It faltered however when he put his hand against his forehead, grimacing. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” 

“Okay? No. Alive? Yes. I'll be fine,” he said stiltedly. “Hung over, but not as badly as the first time,” he added. “Guess the drugs really did the trick then…” he said, almost in an aside to himself. “Thanks for that, by the way, the collar thing. I - I’m not gonna think about how you could have easily pressed the wrong button… I  _ knew _ I should've put some labels on it...”

“Oh my God, so you  _ were  _ high,” Sasha laughed loudly, and Rhys shushed her, looking over her shoulder at the two other sleeping figures. He ushered her into the bathroom and shut the door behind them. “Oh my God,” she laughed again, almost desperately, despite the stiffness of them both. 

“I - yes, okay? I was - Wait - w-why do you say it like that? Why are you laughing?” he stuttered, rubbing his neck. 

“You woke up once before and you were  _ so _ out of it,” she said smiling, feeling lighter than she had since they arrived, some of the tension in her shoulders easing. She leveled him with a sympathetic look. “You confessed your feelings for me,” she said and his eyes grew wider than she’d ever seen while his jaw dropped momentarily before he could snap it shut. 

“I-I-I I did? What - haha - what did I say? Exactly?” he asked, forcing out a laugh and continuing to rub the back of his neck. 

“You just said you  _ liked _ me, Mister Roboto,” she said, nudging him in the ribs gently. When he visibly relaxed she arched an eyebrow at him. “Now I’m curious how you  _ really  _ feel,” she remarked, and his shoulders hitched up again. 

“I - uh - hey,” he quickly redirected, turning around to face the mirror in a vain attempt to hide the color rising in his cheeks and she frowned. “Do the marks look bigger to you? They look like they got bigger to me,” he asked in one breath. Sasha leaned to the side a bit, her face a visage of consternation, as she studied his reflection in the mirror, though she could see a few of the lightning bolts branded into the back of his neck. 

“Hm, yea, I guess they kinda do,” she replied as he tugged on the skin of his cheek near one of the cracks, wincing in the process. The mark flickered, and his collar let out a high pitched beep and buzzed, but he did not remove his hand; instead he frowned deeper and leaned closer to the mirror, squinting. Her gaze flicked from him to her own reflection in the mirror and the blatant frown there surprised her. She reigned it in with a deep breath before setting her features in a more neutral expression.

“How does it work?” Sasha finally asked after watching him poke his own face for what she decided was far too long.  

“How does what work?” he asked before opening his mouth and staring into it. She arched an eyebrow and shook her head. 

“The collar,” she specified, a little indignantly.

“Oh right, that. It monitors my biochemistry and vitals and takes countermeasures whenever I start to do the… teleporting… thing - ranging from physical stimuli to chemical. If I ignore the warnings and it gets past a certain point it’s programmed to administer drugs: painkillers, anti-nausea, sedatives, at whatever dosage is appropriate for the reaction’s severity, so hopefully nobody has to punch me out again. And I don’t wake up as miserable as I did the first time,” he explained. “I damn near wiped out the onboard supply though; had to refill it just now,” he added, his hands migrating downwards to the series of buttons and lights on his collar. 

He paused for a moment when he realized she was staring at him. “What?” 

“It’s - I’m glad to hear you’ve got it figured out,” she said, taking a breath before continuing. “I just… wish we could’ve helped, somehow, you know?” she added, some of giddiness from before dissipating. Maybe it was the knowledge that every time his collar beeped and buzzed it might be shooting him up with drugs; maybe it was how… normal he seemed now: leaning into the mirror and prodding at the violet scars in his skin like a teen at a pimple. It was hard to remedy the scene with the one they’d experienced just yesterday.

He turned towards her, something tugging the corners of his mouth down and his brows coming together while he seemed to search for words.

“Sasha, you  _ did _ , okay?” he said, almost reaching out but stopping himself short and rubbing his neck again. “I’m sorry,” he finally said and she regarded him oddly.

“What are you apologizing for? You’re okay. I’m glad,” she said with a perplexed smile, but he shook his head.

“It - that time - back at Helios. First I - we…” he floundered for a moment before pausing to collect his thoughts. “I’m sorry I just… left like that… okay?” he finally asked and she flinched. 

“Oh, right.  _ That _ ,” she replied. “You did what you had to do,” she said with a shrug. “And it worked out,” she added, as much for herself as for him.

“Yea but… you  _ got me _ there. You, and Vaughn, Fiona and Yvette, you all helped me get where I needed to be but… sometimes I just need to figure things out on my own. Not gonna say it didn’t suck,” he said with a small smirk. “Kept myself busy, but at some point I had to - well, I won’t go into details but it’s… not been pleasant,” he reported easily. He seemed to chew on his next words, searching her face before making his decision. 

“And I never wanted to leave you,” he added quietly. 

“Yea, it was pretty a pretty sudden shift,” she said but she laughed at his commiserative smile. “But it’s okay.” 

“I missed you,” he said and she couldn't help the tinge of a smile that brought.

“I… missed you too, I guess,” she said quietly, the corners of her lips twitching up further into the ghost of a smile. “Also, for the record,” she followed up quickly, “I think Fiona and I are the worst Vault Hunters in the history of Vault Hunting,” she said, another exasperated laugh escaping her. 

“That’s not true!” Rhys said with a sudden burst of energy, as if he’d been containing it, restraining himself just now. He laughed and clapped her on the shoulder. “You’ve already got one Vault under your belt; that’s probably more than most, right?” he asked grinning. Staring at him she couldn’t help the mirroring smile from spreading across her face as she chuckled.  

“Right, because that one had  _ so much loot _ ,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Hey, a Vault’s a Vault,” he said and she nodded, before looking to the side and realizing his hand was still on her shoulder. “Oh, uh, what’s that doing there?” he asked, laughing awkwardly as he jerked his hand back, fingers curling in upon his palm. 

“No, it’s fine,” Sasha quickly said before shaking her head. “It’s just - you and my sister have the  _ weirdest _ sense of timing,” she laughed, and he ran his hand through his hair. 

“Hahaha, ohh man, was  _ not _ going for the sisterly vibe,” he laughed and frowned at the floor. 

“So you  _ were _ going for another kind of vibe just then?” she asked, ducking forward to catch his eye with a smirk. 

“I - uh - no, just trying to be supportive!” he stuttered. “Not - necessarily in a… sibling… kind of way… you know what I’m just gonna-” 

“Rhys,” Sasha stopped him before he could, what, she wasn’t sure… there wasn’t exactly a lot of room in the bathroom. Jump in the shower? She filed that one away. “It’s okay,” she said, and he turned back towards her slowly.    
  
“Yea?” he asked. 

“I understand, I guess, the whole… hermit thing,” she said. “And,” she added, a smile playing upon her lips, “I like you too, you know,” she admitted.

“Yea?” he asked again, stepping into her. She craned her neck to maintain eye contact the closer they got. 

“It’s just - the  _ thing _ ,” she stammered, bringing her hands up. He furrowed his brow, shaking his head at her, not following. “The collar?” she specified. “Feels weird calling it that,” she said in an aside. “Will it stop - you’re not gonna teleport on me again are you?” she asked and his lips stretched into a wide smile. 

“As long as this thing is on, I'm not gonna teleport again; I'm all yours,” he reported as he snaked his arms around her waist. He dipped towards her and she drew back a bit.

“Is it gonna beep? Because if it beeps that’s gonna be kinda weird,” she said. He chuckled and freed one of his hands to press a button. 

“Muted,” he said. “You’re going to have to ignore any buzzing though; you get used to it,” he stated as she brought her arms up above his to wrap them around his shoulders.

“I’ll try,” she breathed, and with a swift bob he came down to her height and captured her in a kiss, slowly drawing her back up as far as she was comfortable. It was only a few moments before the collar buzzed, but he hummed against her lips, barely breaking away.

“It’s okay,” he whispered, “just… keeping me here,” he said, before kissing the side of her lips. She turned her face a little to the side to meet him with an open mouthed kiss and she could almost feel him melting against her. And then -

KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK! 

The sound sent them flying apart. Sasha stumbled to backwards, barely sidestepping the toilet, and Rhys spun around towards the shower, a frantic buzzing following him until finally punctuated by a clicking hiss as he braced himself against the shower wall. He slumped a bit with a sigh. 

“I think I might… need to increase the threshold... or dial the preliminary dosage back a bit… if this is going to… be happening all the time,” he whined in a low, halting voice. Sasha quickly looked from him to the door and back, before determining he wasn’t moving but wasn’t falling either. She palmed the door controls and it slid aside to reveal an expectant Fiona.

“Is he o-” she started to ask before her head jerked back a bit and she smirked. Fiona looked from one of them to the other. “I’m sorry; did I interrupt something?” 

“Yes.” “No!” Sasha and Rhys replied at the same time. Their eyes met in startled surprise briefly before looking away again and Fiona crossed her arms, her smirk spreading knowingly to an all out grin. 

“Well,” she said, “glad to hear he’s not feeling  _ too  _ badly.” 

“Wow, you three are  _ bad _ ,” Lilith called from the armchair. “And I don’t mean in a good way. You’re awkward as  _ hell _ ,” she clarified vehemently. 

“Okay, that’s it,” Rhys said, straightening up with only the slightest wobble. “Everybody out-” he said waving at Fiona and Sasha, “Out - of the bathroom, I mean,” he added as he herded the sisters back out into the living space. With a wave of his cybernetic hand the lights came back on and Sasha moved to the side as he stood in the doorway with his hands on his hips, facing the three of them down. 

Lilith leveled him with a darkening glower and he regarded her, perplexed for a moment. Then he looked down at himself and seized up in an aggravated fit, hastily removing his hands from his hips and clenching them with a hiss, before dropping them to his side with a sigh. He put a hand to his forehead as his face scrunched up on itself.

“Listen, why are you-” he brought down a hand towards Lilith, “still here? Don’t you have other people you can be bothering?” he asked and she simply leveled him a withering stare. 

“I guess,” she acquiesced. “I just thought maybe we should wrap things up; thought you might have some questions you might like answered,” she said and he stared at her from under a level brow, before taking a deep breath and sighing again. 

“Valid point,” he agreed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Uhh, my bad. Sit, please,” he said with another wave of his hand to the sofa and chair. Lilith stared at him from where she remained in the armchair, while the sisters returned to the couch.

Rhys grabbed a chair from the kitchenette and spun it around so it faced the others when he sat.

“So your ah - experiment - it worked?” he started. “And… you think I'm the… Vault Guardian? Is that what I heard?” he asked.

“More or less,” Lilith replied. “The Vault of the Traveler is… strange,” she said. “And the best I can gather about the  _ how  _ is that it boils down to your cybernetics.”

“Oh, you've got to be kidding me,” Rhys groaned. “Cassius suggested that too but there's no way _Vault water_ in my _cranial_ _port_ did this,” he cried.

“Maybe not just that,” Lilith agreed, “but Vault Guardians are, for all intents and purposes, biomechanical constructs: not quite robots, but not beings of flesh and blood, left by the Eridians to protect the Vaults. You destroyed one. And then it sounds like you found the reset button,” she said with a frown. “Disturbing though,” she added in a quieter voice. “That such a capability exists.”

“Re… reset button,” Rhys repeated. “That doesn't make any sense - I - wouldn't the Traveler have reappeared if we found a - a ‘reset button?’” Rhys asked, shaking his head. The siren just raised her brows at him.

“Yea, that's what I just said. With your cybernetics you somehow tricked the Vault into thinking  _ you  _ were the new construct and boom - now  _ you're _ the Guardian,” she said.

“Uh huh,” Rhys said, with a slow nod. “ _ Boom _ …” he repeated. “Right, so, I'm not sure which is more ridiculous… The whole siren business or  _ this _ .”

“You're not a siren-”

“I know!” Rhys snapped. He heaved a sigh and put a hand on his forehead. “Sorry,” he said finally.

“Regardless of the how, or why, Rhys; it's happened,” Fiona interjected.

“And now, you have the ability to summon a Vault,” Lilith said.

“And teleport,” Sasha added.

“Through dimensions,” Fiona quipped and Rhys glared.

“The question is: what are you going to do about it?” Lilith asked. 

“I don't - I don't see what I  _ can _ do about it,” Rhys said.

“You don't?” she asked.

“Do you?” he returned with a snarl.

“You can't just deny what's happened. You can  _ try _ but the rest of Pandora won't be so forgiving,” she proclaimed. 

_ Run as far and as fast as you want, kiddo. _

“And what's that supposed to mean?” he shot back, feeling his heartbeat pick up as a chill ran down his spine. His collar shook at his neck and he swallowed heavily, stretching.

“I  _ mean _ , I'm not going to be the first to come here asking about the mysterious siren dude,” she said. “And sooner or later, people are going to figure out you're the metaphorical, or  _ literal _ , key to a Vault.”

“I still don't know what you're expecting me to do?” Rhys demanded from his chair, his voice rising. His tattoos flickered and flashed and the collar vibrated harder with a buzz, making him wince.

“You need to learn how to control it,” she urged, “and you need to be  _ prepared _ ,” she said and he crossed his arms. 

“I don't - this is ridiculous,” he breathed, settling back in his chair defiantly. He ran a finger between his collar and skin to let it breathe a bit before crossing his arms again.

“So what then? You're just going to ignore it? Hole up here like some boss in bunkers and badasses?” Lilith asked.

_ Hide, if you prefer, you spineless piece of skag crap. _

“It's no skin off  _ my _ nose but people  _ will  _ come,” she added.

“I'm - I’m not hiding! I'm going to stay here and  _ do my job _ ,” Rhys retorted, his voice tight. “I  _ am  _ still CEO of Atlas and I want nothing to do with this… Vault… Guardian… thing… business.”

“You think some Vault Hunters are going to care?” Lilith asked. “I can tell you exactly how many Vault Hunters wouldn't kill you: a random stranger and former Hyperion stooge, if it meant getting them one step closer to a Vault,” she said. She waved at Fiona and Sasha. “Two.” Rhys felt his shoulders slump and he groaned, dropping his head into his hands.

“What about you?” Sasha asked sharply. 

“If I didn't believe you when you said the Vault was full of eridium, I'd probably go after it too. But _ that much _ eridium? Just the  _ temptation  _ would kill me. Like it’s probably going to kill your friend here. Those eridium veins don't look good.”

Rhys groaned louder, unmoving.

“The eridium though - maybe that's it,” Fiona said quietly. “We tell the truth, be completely honest,” she continued, picking up speed. “Yes, we can summon a Vault but there's no loot or anything, just eridium.”

“Which in  _ itself  _ is incredibly valuable,” Lilith replied. “Then you'll have some enterprising asshole come and use glow boy here to hold open the Vault as long as he can so they can mine it while  _ they  _ can. They won't give a skag’s ass it'll kill him.”

“I really, really hate this planet sometimes,” Rhys whined. 

“Hey, your hero Handsome Jack would've been first in line to wring every bit of eridium out of you that he could, if he were still around,” Lilith spat, and he had no response. 

_ There's no escaping this. _

Rhys clenched his left hand and opened it several times, finding it hard to breathe, the collar still tight around his neck.

“Yea. So be grateful for that,” Lilith's voice interrupted his thoughts, for which he was, for once grateful, and he sat back in the chair, putting his hand on his leg.

“So what are we going to do? Live the rest of our lives on the run?” Sasha asked.

“No,” Rhys sighed. “No, I couldn't ask that of you guys,” he said, and Sasha crossed her arms.

“Wow, you really do know how to make things  _ dramatic _ ,” she said. “You're not  _ asking _ us to do anything. And I'll be damned if I let you brush us off again. It might've worked last time but you're  _ going _ to need help if Vault Hunters catch a word of this.”

“Maybe,” Fiona interjected, “there’s an undo button,” she suggested, looking at the others, who returned her eager looks skeptically. “What? If there’s a ‘reset’ then maybe there’s an ‘undo,’ s’all I’m saying,” she posited. 

“Only problem is summoning the Vault,” Sasha pointed out, looking at Rhys. 

“Yea, that… hasn’t really gone so well in the past,” he agreed, rubbing his neck. 

“And, again, it’ll likely kill you,” Lilith said, with a brief dip of her chin, causing the others to return their full attention to her. “The eridium veins on your side,” she said. “They grew when you summoned the Vault, didn’t they?” she asked, and Rhys swallowed. 

“I-I think so,” he replied. “And… you think, if they get much bigger they’ll kill me?” he asked and she shrugged. He flexed his hand again, his body feeling suddenly heavy against the chair, and he found himself glancing down at his side for reassurance.

“It can’t be good, can it?” she replied and briefly, visions of a solid eridium hand clawing futilely toward the ceiling flashed in his mind.

“Okay, so, summoning the Vault  _ that  _ way is out of the question,” Sasha stated, crossing her arms and he shook himself free of the memory. “What about Gortys?” she asked. 

“Hey,” Fiona said, smiling. “That might work!” 

“I don’t know,” Rhys groaned. “I mean… the last time you guys used Gortys to draw the Vault  _ I  _ was still… holding it open, or whatever,” he said. “What if by activating Gortys we activate  _ me  _ too? Wow, that sounds weird… And I mean, there wasn’t a lot else in that Vault, was there? Fiona?” he asked and she dropped her gaze then too, pensively, before shaking her head. 

“Whole lotta eridium… some plants… some water… but no, everything seemed to lead to the chest you scanned,” she said.

“There’s gotta be something,” Sasha said. “Maybe another Vault?” 

“What good would  _ another  _ Vault do?” Rhys asked.

‘Well, if one Vault contains a reset, maybe another contains an undo, or whatever? Or… something we can… use to… remove… it… or something. I don’t know,” Sasha suggested. Rhys dropped his head back into his hands and massaged his temples carefully.  

_...There’s no escaping… _

Rhys reared back in his chair, taking a deep breath  and holding it for a moment before letting it out. He brought up his left palm to stare at the luminescent violet trenches carved into his skin before making a fist again. 

“I guess,” he said, interrupting a conversation he hadn’t hear the others start, “that’s the only option, isn’t it?” he asked.The others went quiet and stared.

“You  _ could  _ stay here and ignore it. Probably won’t end well for you though,” Lilith quickly pointed out.

“No,” Rhys sighed. “There’s no escaping this,” he said quietly, unclenching his fist. “I guess I owe you guys a lot in the first place. Seems about time to start making it up,” he said, settling his gaze on Sasha for a lingering moment. 

Then with a weak, snorted laugh, he trained his gaze upon Fiona. 

“Looks like you got your team  _ siren _ ,” he said, bringing up his fingers to put air quotes around the last word. It took a moment for it to register, but soon Fiona broke out into a wide grin, before she caught herself and ducked her head, training her lips into a well contained smirk.

“Welcome to the team,” she said through her smirk, her eyes shining. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> darn it, fiona! rhys and sasha just can't catch a break, come on, just let them kiss for longer than five minutes already. 
> 
> anyway, parts of this chapter actually gave me the most trouble i've had writing this fic, so hopefully it turned out okay! also hopefully what i'm doing with the BL lore isn't too far fetched...


	9. Bullet Train

Lilith didn’t stay much longer. After deciding Rhys was, for the most part, goodnatured, despite the trail of destruction in his wake, and of no use or threat to her, she departed. That left the Atlas CEO with the two con artists turned Vault Hunters and a whole facility of Atlas tech.

“So, where’re the guns?” Sasha finally asked, while she turned a tiny, deactivated robot over in her hands. Rhys tossed a glare at her over his shoulder.

“I haven’t made any,” he replied simply while rummaging through a storage container. Sasha dropped the robot to the floor in shock. “Hey-hey!” he exclaimed, pulling out of the container and unconsciously reaching for the bot, though it had already hit the ground. He smacked himself in the forehead with a groan. “Do you have _any idea_ how delicate those are? And _expensive_?” he groaned.

“What good is a soul eating corporation if they don’t make _guns_?” Sasha breathed.

“Atlas is going to be _much more_ than a soul eating corporation, thank you very much,” Rhys hissed as he crouched and picked up the small robot. “I decided to dedicate my time to more _constructive_ technologies,” he said as he stood, smiling at the dormant robot. He deposited it carefully on the shelf above the container before returning to his search.

“So,” Fiona droned. “What you’re saying is Atlas weapons tech is still going to be discontinued and therefore extremely valuable?” she asked and he huffed from where he knelt once again, bent over and half in the container.

“Guess so,” he replied, and the sisters exchanged conspiratorial glances, mentally cataloging the few Atlas weapons they already had. “At least for now.”

“But that doesn’t explain what you’re looking for,” Sasha pointed out. “You’re going to need a weapon if we’re going to go out Vault hunting.”

“I’m well aware of that, my dear,” he said before straightening and exclaiming, “Aha!” He drew out of the container, with the object of his search in his hands. He saw the sisters’ unimpressed glares as they regarded him in identical crossed armed stances. “Haha, figure of speech, ‘my dear,’ you know, what - nevermind,” he stuttered as he climbed to his feet. He held up the item in his hand.

“The… stun baton?” Sasha observed. Rhys waved it a bit in a shrug.

“What?” he asked. “It worked well enough the last time,” he pointed out.

“Can’t… one of your robots help you, or something?” Fiona suggested. Rhys tucked the stun baton away and rubbed the back of his neck, as he scrunched up his face, thinking.

“I don’t have anything like LoaderBot, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said. “I do have a bunch of hover turrets stashed away though, ,” he added.

“Like the ones that tried to kill us when we first found Gortys?” Fiona asked and he frowned awkwardly.

“Yea, actually, those ones,” he replied flatly. “I modified them though. They fire electric pulses instead of bullets now.”

“And you can control them?” Sasha asked, arching an eyebrow. Rhys put his hands on his hips and smirked confidently.

“Ohhoho, can I control them?” he laughed. “Babe, I’ve got hooks into pretty much every bit of Atlas tech in this facility by now,” he announced.

“A simple yes would have sufficed,” Sasha said but she grinned as she shook her head, her shoulders shaking a little with silent laughter.

“Come on, it’s not the least bit impressive?” he asked and she rolled her eyes, though she kept smiling. Fiona shook her head at them then.

“Oh boy,” she groaned before moving on. “Considering you’re the Atlas CEO, one would expect nothing less,” she said. “Now let’s get going; we need to pick up our fourth teammate.”

“You mean _convince_ our fourth teammate,” Sasha pointed out.  

“What? Rhys was the stubborn one,” Fiona said with a dismissive wave. “With him on board there’s no way Vaughn will disagree.”

“Except for the whole leading the Children of Helios thing?” Sasha replied.  

“Yea,” Rhys agreed. “I don’t know. I feel bad asking him to leave all that,” he said.

“We need a fourth person,” Fiona insisted. “Who else are we gonna get? Janey’s made sure Athena’s retired. _You’ve_ got Cassius doing… whatever he does for you,” she added leveling a pointed look at Rhys.

“Which is very important!” Rhys protested. “ _This_ facility might be automated for the most party now but the biodome isn’t,” he stated. “I’m not giving up on Atlas just because of all… this…” he said, motioning to his left side. “I’ll work remote,” he added, smiling and wiggling the fingers on his robotic hand.

“You are such a nerd,” Sasha breathed.

“Don’t hate me because I’m motivated,” he replied instantly and she blinked, staring for a moment before bursting out into laughter, making him harrumph.

“O-kay,” Fiona said, “So, Cassius is out; we can’t bring in any other _actual_ Vault Hunters because, as we’ve already established, if they figured out Rhys’ condition, which, let’s be honest, isn’t exactly something we can hide,” she said, staring at the violet marks, “we’re in trouble.”

“What about Zer0?” Rhys asked.

“Last I checked he was still a Vault Hunter,” Fiona replied.

“But he helped back at the race,” Rhys pointed out.

“He was just looking for the Gortys core, because it led to a _Vault_. We don’t know he would help us over opening the Vault again,” Fiona explained and Rhys groaned in resignation. “So that leaves Vaughn or August.”

“Nnno,” Rhys said. “Vetoing the August idea,” he added and the sisters trained their amused stares on him. “Seriously?” he asked. “You’re gonna make me say it?” he asked, even more incredulously as he rapidly motioned between himself and Sasha.

“Aww, how sweet,” Sasha cooed. “You’re jealous.”

“I am not jealous,” he quickly retorted. “I just - think he might - be confused - about - you know - us - and you and him - and… stuff,” he stuttered. “Just figured it’d be more complicated than we need right now,” he added, but the sisters simply continued staring with entertained smirks. “Okay, I’m a little bit jealous. Concerned. Whatever,” he admitted. “Can we move on?”

“Right, so that leaves Vaughn,” Fiona stated, before looking to Sasha. “Or…?”

“No,” Sasha said immediately.

“Right,” Fiona repeated emphatically, “so _that leaves Vaughn_.” Rhys rubbed his forehead with one hand and had the other on his hip as he frowned.

“Okay, okay,” he said. “But we’re not guilting him into this, okay?” he said, wagging a finger at Fiona, who regarded him innocently, bringing her own hands up to her chest questioningly.

“We’re _not_ ,” he reiterated. “We go; we ask; he responds; and we accept his answer,” he stated. He seemed to notice Fiona’s disbelieving stare and he heaved a heavy sigh. “You think I don’t want him to the be the fourth member of our little squad?” he cried, almost instantly flinching at the volume of his own voice. He took a breath before continuing.

“He’s my _best friend_ ,” he declared. “The best friend I’ve ever had in my _entire life_ ; a better one than I’ve ever deserved,” he said, looking away from the Pandoran con artists. “And he’s finally got something going for him and _just him_ ,” he added. He brought his gaze back up to Sasha and Fiona. “And I don’t want to take away from that.”

“Okay,” Fiona agreed and Rhys relaxed a little. “No guilt tripping.”

“No guilt tripping?” he repeated and she rolled her eyes and started heading towards the door that led to the exit. “No cajoling? Coaxing? Whining or wheedling?”

“Easy there, Mister Roboto; don’t want to blow a gasket on your vocabulary,” Sasha quipped as she and Rhys fell into step behind Fiona.

“Excuse me, I have barely begun to scratch the surface,” Rhys replied, a smirk tugging at the edges of his lips once more. “I think you’ll find my vocabulary is quite _broad_ , thank you very much.”

“Ohhh my God,” Fiona cried from in front of them as she slapped a hand to her forehead and squeezed her eyes shut. Rhys regarded her in confusion and her sister started sputtering with giggles as they began their journey back to the ruins of Helios.

 

They were well on their way to the seat of the Children of Helios, passing through a chasm lined on both sides with high cliffs, when a tire blew on their digistructed buggy. Startled, Rhys yelped from where he sat in the passenger seat and slid down, his collar beeping, while Sasha swerved and slammed her foot on the brakes, making Fiona cling desperately to the gunner’s seat to avoid being thrown off.

“Hey!” she protested as she thumped back to the seat once they'd stopped.

“Sorry,” Sasha threw back quickly. She climbed out of the vehicle and hopped down to the ground to inspect the damage.

“Uugh, what now?” Rhys groaned as he straightened up in the passenger’s seat.

“Blew a tire,” Sasha said walking around the front. “There should be a spare in the-” she started but stopped once she reached the offending front right tire, stuck full of spikes. “Oh no,” she breathed and urgently cast her gaze to the cliff walls. Fiona instantly picked up on the change in Sasha's tone and stood from the gunner’s seat, prepping the mounted gun instead. Rhys ducked forward when the machine gun moved and he turned in his seat to look.

“What-what? Trouble?”

“Trap,” Sasha said, her gun out as her eyes scoured the rocky walls towering above them. “This is bad.”

“This is bad?” Rhys echoed, hopping down from the vehicle to join her.

“Change the tire,” Fiona said. “I'll cover you.”

“Got it,” Sasha said, hurrying to the back off the vehicle. “Help me,” she commanded, beckoning Rhys to follow her, which he did without question.

They hadn't even reached the spare when a shot rang out and hit the metal plating with a loud TWANG!

“Bandits!” Sasha yelled as she ducked and Rhys threw himself to the ground. Fiona swung the mounted machine gun in what she thought was the direction of the shot and scanned along the cliff face.

“What are you doing?” Rhys shouted. “Start shooting!”

“I can't see them!” she retorted. “Ahh!” she yelled as another shot pierced the air and tore into the back of her arm.

“Fiona!” Rhys gasped and Sasha was shooting over the car in the direction of the second sniper.

“Get down from there; get in cover,” she yelled but her sister was already scrambling off the vehicle as another shot ricocheted off the plate she'd just stepped over.

“We're surrounded!” Rhys yelped, “What kind of cover are we supposed to use when we're surrounded?!”

“Under the car!” Fiona said as she rolled under the chassis of the vehicle. Sasha slid to follow  from the rock she'd been pushed up against and Rhys crawled under soon after. Another sniper round made the dust erupt in a miniature geyser behind him not a second later. He glared at it before looking to the sisters.

“This is just great,” he groaned. “Are you okay?” he asked; Sasha was already wrapping Fiona’s arm with a scrap of fabric.

“I'm fine; it's just a scratch,” Fiona replied.

“Goddamn lucky,” Sasha breathed as she tied the makeshift bandage off. Another shot thudded into the vehicle above them, making Rhys flatten even more against the ground momentarily.

“Damn it, how long until our cover turns into a flaming funeral pyre?” he asked.

“Too soon,” Sasha said. “I knew we should've gone the long way but this path was _clear_ a month ago.”

“Okay, okay, let's not panic,” Fiona soothed. “They have us pinned and out ranged but… Rhys, your little floaty turrets - do you think you can use one of those to flush them out?”

“I - maybe - yea,” he said and brought up the control interface on his robotic hand. The turret whirred to life and disengaged from its docking station on the vehicle above them, skyrocketing into the air, spinning.

A shot rang out, and another, both misses as the turret ascended at top speed, relaying the view to the three hidden under the vehicle. It passed the top of the cliffs and slowed its pan.

“There,” Sasha pointed out a group of bandits, snipers, midgets, and psychos alike.

“And there,” Fiona added, on the other side, an even bigger bandit. “Oh no,” she breathed. “Badass.”

“Of _course_ there's a badass,” Rhys groaned as he commanded the turret to begin firing. Its electric projectiles made short work of one of the bandit’s shields before dropping the bandit in a cocoon of electricity and moving onto the next bandit. Unfortunately, their bullets weren’t exactly harmless either, and the turret’s shields shattered under the onslaught.

Warnings screamed from his display and Rhys shook his head as he made the turret take evasive maneuvers.  “It's too much; those guns’ll destroy my turret before it can take them all down,” he reported in frustration.

“Well what else are we supposed to do?” Fiona asked and he glanced to the side for a moment, out from under the vehicle.

“Uh-oh, You've got that look,” Sasha said. “You're thinking. What're you thinking?”

“If they weren't behind cover, could you shoot them from down here?” he asked, quiet but steady.

“Probably not with this,” Fiona said motioning to her wrist gun. “But the mounted gun could do it.” Sasha nodded.

“I probably can,” Sasha said. “What are you-” she started.

“Oh- _oh_ _!_ Yes! That's the spirit,” Fiona interjected, catching on and grinning. Rhys brought his hand up to the collar and turned it off.

“Oh,” Sasha said as she understood too.

“I'll try and get up there and catch them in the anti-grav field. I'll hold it as long as I can and you two shoot them while they're suspended out of cover.”

“Do you think you can do that?” Sasha asked. “I thought you couldn't teleport on command. And isn't it, you know, bad for you?”

“Gotta learn someday,” Rhys said. “And the marks only get wider when I summon the Vault, right? At least as far as I can tell,” he added and the three of them winced as another volley of fire clanged against the metal above them.

“Besides… What's the point of having a team siren that never uses their powers?” he asked with a resigned smirk. Sasha scrambled forward to place a quick peck on his lips with a smile he goofily returned.

“We've got your back,” she said. “I'll take this side, Fi. When he gets them in the air I’ll do my best to cover you while you get up to the mounted gun,” she added and crawled over to the edge of the vehicle.

“Got it,” Fiona replied, shimmying to the other side.

“Ready when you are, Rhys,” Sasha said, and the sisters looked to him expectantly, but his gaze was already unfocused and far away. For once, he sought out the purple haze at the corners of his mind.

He felt the tugging, tearing, as he tried to find the right spot, the right direction; the whispers hissed eagerly behind his eyes, spreading through his brain to his ears. With a heavy, shuddering exhale the violet light flooded his vision and he fell.

From their positions on either side of him, the sisters flinched as lightning crackled and he began to phase out, sinking slightly into the ground as if it were quicksand, before disappearing in a burst of light and sparks.

“That is so weird,” Fiona observed breathily, and Sasha nodded, before they both peeked out from under the vehicle to watch.

Free falling so fast it hurt to hold his eyes open through the wind and light, Rhys grimaced, gritting his teeth as another lightning bolt crackled across his skin and through the nothingness. He wasn’t… sure he was going in the right direction anymore. It was hard to tell which pull was the in the right direction. It was easier to determine when he could see the world around him but now…

Hoping he was right, he clenched his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut as he followed the pull, pushing the other grabbing, ripping tendrils of electricity and blinding light away.

And he fell through the haze with a violent explosion of light and sound and came crashing down to the ground with a CRACK of thunder. Blinking wildly as the shockwave rolled out and arcs of violet lightning danced about him, he pushed the violet fog out of his vision and looked around, gasping for breath. Nothing but sky lorded over him so he must be on the cliff top, but where?

“EEYYAA WASSAT!” something cried behind him. “Siren?!” “Kill! Kill! Kill!”

He yelped at the shouts and stumbled forward, tumbling over and turning around to face the group of bandits, the one led by the Badass Raider. Some of them stepped back from the ledge, bringing their guns around as Rhys backpedaled.

“Oh crap,” he said. “H-Hi guys.”

“You lost?” the hulking Raider asked, leveling his automatic weapon at Rhys.

“Ohhhcrapohcrapohcrap,” Rhys chanted as he staggered backwards into the draw of the screaming whispers, the stifling nothingness. A bolt of lightning flared from his arm and sent the bandits scurrying in surprise, prompting them to begin firing again. As the ground beneath his feet began to shift and give way, amongst the bullets tearing through the air all around him, he felt it then.

The wrenching jolt, pulling at him, as he stared down the barrel of the Badass’ gun. Through the storm of pain and sound and the hail of bullets whizzing by his ears, he heard laughing.

He grabbed the tugging thread like a fish at a lure and disintegrated again into the blinding light. This time he traveled but a moment before reappearing in mid-air.

Gravity and power combined and he crashed to the ground as if something had forcibly slammed him down. Violet and blue energy snapped all around him, the blue breaking apart and shattering, the violet arcing and snaking out in all directions. Something crunched beneath his boots and he stumbled as the shockwave exploded from the impact again.

He frantically looked around through the violet lightning bolts and the gusting wind and felt a surge of triumph beyond the pain as he laughed, grinning wildly at the floating, squealing bandits, contorted by electricity. They were yelling at him but he couldn’t hear them over the roar of the whispers and the wind and the hot wave of success coursing through his veins.

Another lightning bolt erupted from his port, silencing him and making him flinch, but he dared not move, less it interrupt the stasis.

The gunfire began anew, rapid, consecutive shots. Bullets sprayed up and over the edge of the cliffside, mercilessly tearing into the suspended bandits, and he vaguely noticed not a hint or flash of the blue film of any shields.

When the last of them had been riddled full of holes, Rhys let go of the breath he’d been holding and saw stars erupt in the brief darkness that clouded his eyes. Sparks flew and static dissipated into the sky as the bodies fell to the ground.

Rhys straightened up, putting a hand over his eyes to block out the light as his vision cleared.

When he shifted on his feet he slipped and his breath caught in his chest as he tripped and started to fall. To _actually_ fall, as he pushed the violet haze out of his mind’s eye. He fell down to his hands and knees and froze.

The ground was red beneath him.

He snatched his hands up, rearing back and blinking furiously as he looked around. He threw himself backwards as his eyes fell upon the body of the badass beside him, and Rhys scrabbled away like some absurd type of crab.

The badass had no head. His body maimed and crumpled in on itself, a mangled mess of blood, tissue, and bone. And, with searing horror, Rhys realized, _he_ was drenched in blood himself. From his toes to his knees.

As if it belonged to someone else, his foot moved slightly; a bit of… something… stuck to the toe of his boot.

And with a scream, his fell backwards, his hands sinking through the ground that suddenly wasn’t so solid. He reached out and fell back to the floor of the chasm, some ways away from the girls and another cry peeled from him with the shockwave and the lightning as he grabbed at his own head.

“Something’s wrong,” Fiona gasped from her vantage point atop the vehicle.

“Rhys!” Sasha yelled and she darted from hers. Fiona looked up to the other side of the cliffs, the one they hadn’t cleared, but no shots came. Sasha staggered through a rippling gust laced with lightning and reached for him. “Rhys,” she called, but when she received no answer save the incoherent wailing from between clenched teeth, she hastily turned on the collar.

The frantic high pitched beeps and buzzing were instantaneous, shortly accompanied by the blaring tone and the clicking hiss, and Rhys gasped, his wide radiant eyes fluttering as the violet seeped out of them, receding.

“Ahh-hahh-gahh,” he stuttered and Sasha grabbed his shoulder to steady him as Fiona approached, eyes still warily elevated. “Head-gone-b-blood-the-crunch-bluuhhh,” he rambled between gasps.

“Rhys, Rhys, are you hurt?” Sasha asked, reaching up to his head and turning it this way and that, looking for wounds.

“Nn-squish-like-melon-buh-buh-boot-”

“Sash,” Fiona whispered, pointing at Rhys’ feet. Sasha’s eyes widened at the sticky blood coating his fine boots and slacks for a moment before she gathered herself.

“Hey-hey, Rhys, look at me,” she said and he complied, bi-colored eyes wide. “You’re okay - you did great! Don’t even worry about it,” she soothed.

“H-head… exploded. G-gone. I-I… landed. On his… H-heaaad,” Rhys stammered, shaking violently in her grasp. His tattoos flared and his collar beeped and hissed again and he exhaled heavily several times with staggered breaths as he swayed, blinking blearily.

“Rhys, it’s okay,” she repeated, putting a bracing hand on the side of his head. “That was a bad guy, remember? Trying to kill us? We were _trying_ to kill him back?” Rhys didn’t respond, but she couldn’t tell if it was because he was conflicted or if it was because he was suddenly too sedated to, she realized as one of his eyelids drooped and his gaze drifted from her. She leaned back a bit and threw a worried glance at her sister.

Fiona gave a brief, concerned shrug before looking up again.

“You look after him while I try and change this tire really quick,” Fiona said. Sasha nodded and coaxed Rhys to his feet. She guided him over to a rock and he shuffled slowly in a daze, barely conscious of her touch. He flopped down beside the rock with her help and slumped against it while she went to get a canteen and some rags to clean him up. “We need to get out of here.”

 

Some time, a spare tire, and one drugged up and shellshocked Rhys later, and they were driving along again. The lights on his collar shone solid green and amber, and were silent as he sobered up in the passenger seat, his elbow on the door and his chin resting in his hand as he stared blankly at the blurred scenery passing by as dusk began to settle over them. Casting a cursory glance in his direction again from the driver’s seat, Sasha noticed the lucidity returning to his eyes.

“How’re you holding up over there, Mister Roboto?” she asked, and he shifted in his seat. He sighed and straightened up, taking his head off his hand, and combing it through his hair.

“Okay,” he said. He must’ve noticed her skeptical look because he sighed again and rubbed his neck. “That was just... “ he said, trailing off. “That sucked,” he finally breathed.

“I didn’t mean to… do _that_ ,” he said. Sasha wasn’t quite sure what to say. She’d tried telling him it was just a bandit, tried telling him that killing the bandit had been the _whole idea_ , that it was self defense. But it hadn’t seemed to help. So she just frowned helplessly as she alternated looking between him and the path in front of them.

“It-don’t worry about it,” he muttered, rubbing his forehead and squinting this time. “At least I learned an important lesson,” he said, and she regarded him expectantly. “Don’t aim directly for something you don’t want squished,” he stated almost blandly and she stared for a moment.

“And that the shock wave takes out shields,” Sasha added.

“Yea,” he agreed quietly and with another glance Sasha seemed to make up her mind. She took one hand off the wheel and picked up his. He looked down to her hand, closed around his _once normal_ hand, and studied how the light from his marks glowed through the gaps between her fingers. She gave him a soft squeeze, such a strange feeling now, part pins and needles in the violet cracks and part reassuring warmth that spread throughout his body from the faintest of her touches. Despite himself, he smiled.

“Hey,” Fiona called out from her seat at the mounted gun. “Look there,” she pointed up ahead at a rock formation. “Looks like a good spot to make camp,” she observed.

“Yea,” Sasha agreed, and Fiona was already climbing up to man the gun. “Let's check it out.”

Thankfully the rocky outcropping turned out to be deserted. They pulled up under it and parked the vehicle perpendicularly to the rock face, shielding themselves as best they could from the elements and leaving only two sides open. They busied about making camp: Sasha starting the cooking fire, and Fiona unpacking some of the essentials, while Rhys set up a couple turrets.

“I miss the caravan,” Fiona said and both Rhys and Sasha groaned in agreement as they sat on the ground with their dinner. Each of them sat on their own bedrolls to soften the rocky earth.

“Didn't I see handful of vehicles back at Atlas?” Sasha asked. “Couldn't we have used one of those?”

“Those were prototypes,” Rhys said wearily. “I'll accelerate their development though… Would be nice to have a roof again, and I can think of a couple improvements on the caravan.”

They went about their nightly routines, the sisters maintaining their weapons, while Rhys restocked his collar from his biometrically sealed case, and repaired the damaged hover turret.

Eventually, they surrendered to the darkness around them and let sleep descend upon the camp after another long, long day.


	10. My Silver Lining

Rhys stood alone as the burning ruins of Helios fell down all around him. Laughter echoed throughout the collapsed, cavernous office, outside of him, inside of him, and from his own mouth. 

He clapped his hands over his traitorous lips and the laughter ceased momentarily, so all he could hear were the whispers and the crackling of the flames. But the quiet was fleeting, mere seconds before another keen of exhausted laughter picked up behind him. He spun around to see Handsome Jack sitting in the golden chair, his feet propped up on the highest point of his broken desk; one side had been crushed by debris, so the tabletop sloped to the ground.

“We gotta stop meeting like this, kiddo,” Jack said with a wan smile. 

“Then leave me alone, Jack,” Rhys said, his hands dropping to his sides. “You’re  _ dead _ .” 

“And let you forget about me? Forget about  _ this _ ?” he asked, thrusting his arms out wide, motioning to the ruins around him; the whispers surged briefly, before subsiding slightly, louder than before. “No way, killer.” Rhys flinched, and the striking mask stretched wider. 

“You know, sometimes I surprise myself,” Jack sighed, putting his hands behind his head. “With how right I am. I said it before and I’ll say it again. You are  _ way better  _ at killing than I am, kiddo.” 

“Shut up, Jack,” Rhys growled through clenched teeth.

“You won’t even  _ touch  _ a gun and look at you,” Jack said with a wave. Unconsciously Rhys followed Jack’s motion downwards before quickly dragging his gaze back up, his throat tightening. His boots, his slacks, the glowing gold buttons on his vest... they were all of them covered. Caked in blood. 

“Shut up.” 

“No, really, Rhys, I’m impressed. If I’d known you were half as good as you are at this kinda stuff, I woulda put you to better use before, well, you know.” 

“Stop it, Jack. I’m not talking to you anymore,” Rhys said stubbornly as he turned away from the smiling face of the late Hyperion CEO. The whispers rose to follow him. 

“Where you goin’, cupcake?” Jack called as Rhys began to pick his way through the wreckage.

“ _ Away _ , Jack,” Rhys replied.

“ _ ‘Away, Jack,’ _ he says,” Jack echoed mockingly. “You still think I’m the monster here,” he cackled and Rhys squeezed his eyes shut several times, trying to will away the fog but the whispers built behind them, darkening and blurring his view. 

“Why don’t you try looking in the mirror!” Jack roared suddenly right in his ear as Rhys rounded a corner and the haze parted. The whispers went silent, as he came face to face with just that: a slick and shiny piece of chrome, clean and pristine amongst the flaming debris of the space station, reflecting the carnage. Reflecting Rhys’ bloodsoaked suit and the throbbing violet and white marks etched into his skin, steaming and smoking like the embers around him

Reflecting his face: pale and bloodless. 

Reflecting the two very distinct red hand prints covering his mouth, which slowly dropped open in a terrified cry he could not hear as he grabbed at his throat and the whispers surged back in a tidal wave to devour him whole.  
  
  


“Rhys! Rhys!” Sasha's voice called above the cacophony of deafening whispers, and Rhys shot upright on the small bedroll he'd been tossing and turning on, his blanket tangled around his legs. A furious, frantic warning alarm beeped shrilly at his ears; a violent buzzing stung and pulled at his neck, and he brought his left hand up before his face as he coughed.

Violet tracks of lightning pulsed white in sporadic beats, radiating out in waves from his exposed wrist to his fingertips. 

His collar made another threatening beep, and he reached up with his robotic hand to press the override, disabling the auto injectors, as he clenched his other fist. Pressing his lips together and taking deep breaths through his nose, he glared at his trembling first, knuckles white with tension, and watched the pulses of light subside.  _ Willed _ the white pulses to subside.

It was a long while before he unfurled his fingers and took a long, shuddering breath through his mouth.

“Bad dream?” Sasha asked, startling him a bit; he hadn't realized her voice had been real, though she knelt beside him, watching him with concerned green eyes softened by a smile. “Sorry,” she said, “you were thrashing and talking in your sleep; then your collar started doing the thing.” 

He ran his hand through his hair and realized it was damp with sweat. He pressed the button to enable the collar again and after a few appraising beeps, it went quiet.

“Yea, it-it's okay,” he assured her. “It… happens more often than I'd like nowadays,” he confessed, squeezing his eyes shut. She looked down at the ground between them for a moment before looking at him again and continuing.

“Was it about Jack?” she asked and his breath hitched, a movement not lost on her. “Sorry, it's just - you said his name a couple times. It didn't sound good.”

“It wasn't,” he found himself replying before he could think about it. “Good, I mean,” he quickly added. “It was… Jack was in it, yea.”

“...Was it about today?” she asked and he stiffened further.

“Not… entirely,” he said, but refused to look at her. Couldn't look at her. The flames of Helios, the blood on his clothes and his skin too fresh in his mind.

“I'm sorry,” she said again and he was shaking his head. His senses slowly returned, finally chasing away the sleep and the violet haze, though the tingling in his skin and the tightness in his chest remained.

“It's not  _ your _ fault,” he said. 

“Rhys,” she said, his name a soothing wind on her lips, and he smiled a bit, just listening to it, not looking at her. A beat of silence followed and then she wrapped one arm around his shoulders and the other behind his head, drawing him to her, cradling him against her. He didn't look at her as she ran her fingers through his sweaty hair, instead squeezing his eyes shut. She rubbed a faint circle on his back, and placed a feather light kiss on his cheek, before pressing hers against his.

“It's okay,” she breathed against his ear.

They stayed like that for a long time before the dying campfire under the Pandoran stars. He savored every sensation, drinking it all in, except the tingling at the back of his neck and the grasping tendrils at the edges of everything. He pushed those away, and away, replacing them with the feeling of her fingers at the back of his neck, nestled in his curls, the feeling of her breath against his ear. Eventually, she drew back a little, moving her feet underneath her and rising up a bit, before placing a kiss on his forehead. 

“You're doing great, Atlas,” she whispered and his lips twitched into a smile as his eyes opened. She looked at him so earnestly, her green eyes so bright that he couldn't believe she was lying.

“Thanks,” he replied, his voice hoarser than he'd imagined, and suddenly he was very sleepy again. Almost as if the collar had administered him some sedatives, but he knew it wasn't that. As he wrapped his arms around her too, settling his head over her shoulder, his eyelids fluttered closed. For the first time in a long while, though he was afraid, though he was mortified, and though he strangled his own voice and left a thousand things unsaid. 

He fell asleep smiling.  
  
  


The next morning Fiona awoke early, not surprised to see her sister had gotten up before her. What  _ was _ surprising was that she hadn't put her bedding away yet. Fiona sat up and cast her gaze about the small campsite before finding what she was looking for with a start. She dropped back to her elbows, shaking her head and smiling.

Across the long dead campfire were her two traveling companions, face to face and completely still except for the steady rise and fall that came with each slow and steady breath. Sasha's arms were wrapped around Rhys, one underneath his head, which she cradled just beneath her chin, and her other arm rested over top his shoulders. His long limbs were snaked under hers to come up her back in a sleepy embrace.

Fiona must have made some sort of sound for one of Sasha’s eyes popped open and the hand that was draped over Rhys’ shoulders came up to her mouth in a silent hushing gesture. Fiona simply pretended to zip her lips and grinned.

Rhys shifted slightly then, turning his head farther into the crook of Sasha’s neck and shoulder, which Sasha suddenly realized, with a resigned sigh, were quite damp. He went still at that and she did too. He drew back a bit to look at her out from under half lidded eyes.

“Hi there,” she said with a soft smile. 

“Hi,” he replied, his voice thick with sleep as he withdrew his top arm from around her and rubbed his eyes. “Did we - did I - I hope I didn't keep you…” he muttered groggily.

“Don't worry about it,” she said, combing his curls back from his forehead with her free hand. He closed his eyes at that, smiling absently. “Looks like Mister Roboto could use some coffee,” she observed and he could only make an affirmative moan. She disentangled herself from him and rounded the fire, which Fiona was stoking back to life. 

Sasha retrieved the coffee kit from the vehicle and joined her sister at the fire. Rhys rolled onto his back, throwing an arm over his face to block out the morning sun. Fiona trained her sister with a look as she prodded the fire. Sasha simply shook her head.

“Not a word, Fi. Not now,” she whispered and Fiona nodded, saying nothing. They went about their morning activities, getting coffee and breakfast, washing up as best they could, Rhys finishing by combing his freshly gelled hair back as usual. 

Finally they packed up camp and once again hopped into the vehicle: Fiona and Sasha switched places while Rhys remained in the passenger seat, and they completed the home stretch towards the Children of Helios’ stronghold.  
  
  


“Vehicle approaching!” came the call down from the crow’s nest. It started at one of the spotters, passed to a runner, who jumped up from his card game and ran it to the assistant, who burst through the door to the main office and told their leader in a rush. The supply meeting went silent as Vaughn stood from his seat and hurried out of the room. In moments he’d climbed to the nearest ledge to join one of the many spotters lining the walls of the ruins of Helios. 

“Where?” he asked the spotter behind the binoculars. After another moment the spotter handed them to him. 

“Just past the fork,” the spotter reported. “It’s  _ him _ , sir,” the spotter added, but Vaughn hardly needed to be told that as he focused the binoculars on the vehicle. The figure in question sat leisurely in the passenger seat, chrome hand illuminated by the blue holographic display it idly projected. Fine crafted boots were propped up on the dash and glowing violet tattoos flickered dimly; the blue and violet light mingled on his face, interrupted only by the bright golden eye easily visible. Vaughn returned the binoculars to the spotter with a smile. 

“Tell the laser squads to stand down,” he said as he jogged down the steps. “And you can take the rest of the afternoon off,” he told his assistant.

“Is it Rhys?” Yvette asked as she took quick steps to catch up with him from the main office. 

“Yes, it is,” he replied. 

“How’s he look?” she asked after a moment, her voice unconcerned, but he smirked and shot her a sidelong glance. 

“Like he usually does,” Vaughn replied and a hint of a smile played upon her lips as they went to greet their friends.  
  
  


“Looks like the welcoming committee’s all here,” Fiona observed as they rounded the bend, nearing the entrance to the space station turned bandit camp. Rhys clenched his fist, terminating the connection back to Atlas, and sat up in the passenger seat. Sure enough, Children of Helios seemed to crawl out from the woodwork, so to speak, as they descended farther into the crater. The former Hyperion employees bent at the waist in reverent bows in their wake.

“Still weird,” Sasha remarked, and Rhys sunk back a little into his seat, groaning.

Vaughn was waiting for them, standing in front of the first barricade alongside Yvette and a few others Rhys vaguely recognized from his previous time there. 

“Welcome back!” Vaughn greeted, spreading his arms with a wide grin as Fiona parked the vehicle. Sasha climbed down from one of the seats behind the mounted gun easily, while Rhys hopped out of the bucket seat; the marks on his face and hand flashed a bit but the collar beeped and buzzed and his boots landed solidly on the ground beside the vehicle.

“Bro!” Rhys called, smiling as he walked around the front of the car, before the two collided in a hug. Fiona hopped down beside them as Sasha joined them. 

“You two are adorable, you know that, right?” Fiona remarked. 

“Ah, thanks,” Vaughn replied unabashedly, hug completed. “What brings you three back here? How’s Atlas? And Vault Hunting?” he asked. Rhys opened his mouth to reply but Fiona was infinitely faster with her words. 

“Rhys finally agreed to be our team siren and we need a fourth teammate!” she enthused and Vaughn’s brows shot up while Rhys closed his mouth and slapped a hand over his face.

“Getting right to the point, are we?” Sasha laughed. 

“Not-a-siren,” Rhys said with a strangled voice. 

“Come on, you even called  _ yourself  _ that yesterday,” Fiona retorted.

“It was a - I was trying to - in the heat of the moment - you know what - nevermind,” Rhys replied lamely with a pout. Vaughn looked at him with a barely restrained chuckle. “Trying to be a team player here, okay?” he defended and Vaughn did let out a chuckle at that. 

“So, did I hear that right and you came here looking for a fourth Vault Hunter?” Vaughn asked, looking at the three each in turn. 

“Listen, bro, we have  _ so much  _ to catch up on before we even get to that,” Rhys remarked tiredly.

“Right,” Vaughn agreed. ‘Like how you’re all doing and what that weird piece of tech is around your neck.”    


“Among other things, yea,” Rhys said and he led them inside.  
  
  


Some time later, after a miniature reunion feast in Vaughn’s office with Yvette, the three Vault Hunters took turns explaining all that had happened, to the best of their abilities.

Yvette and Vaughn both stared for a moment, silently, as they appeared to process the info dump.

“So… Rhys is a  _ Vault Guardian _ ,” Yvette repeated. “Complete with Vault; but it’s probably going to kill him one way or another so you’re going to go look for  _ more  _ Vaults to try and reverse the… transformation or whatever?” she asked, waving a hand and arching an eyebrow.

“Yea that’s pretty much it,” Fiona replied and Yvette nodded in dubious understanding. 

“Okay then,” she remarked.

“I’m in,” Vaughn said quickly.

“Really?” Rhys asked, unable to hide his excitement. “Just like that? What about-” he added, waving at the office around them. “This?” 

“They’ll be fine; we’ve got a pretty good setup here. Got security all worked out and communications, trade, food, water, and everything. Yvette can be in charge and we can check in every so often via ECHO Comm,” he explained. 

“Sure, I love doing two people’s jobs at once,” Yvette remarked dryly but Vaughn and Rhys just smiled at her knowingly. Something seemed to occur to Vaughn though as he gasped in excitement. 

“OH, can I be the sniper?” he asked in a rush. “We traded for this really cool sniper rifle I’ve been playing around with; it is  _ sweet! _ ” 

“That,” Fiona said, “would be perfect actually. But can you shoot it?” 

“I can shoot,” he said. “I’m not the best but I’m getting better,” Vaughn explained before slowing down a bit. “And I have this really cool idea that I’ve been meaning to try, and with Rhys here it’ll be so much easier to implement,” he added almost conspiratorially as he beamed at them. 

“What kind of idea?” Rhys asked. 

“I am glad you asked,” Vaughn replied. “I still have my old glasses and I thought - what if we modified them to be have a targeting HUD, huh? Display some stats, like wind velocity and direction, distance to target, blah blah blah,” he said, still grinning. “It could make up for a lot of inexperience, I bet. And let me improve wayyy faster.”

“We’d have to modify the firmware  _ and  _ software, add some hardware for accurate environmental readings... The software would be the easy part,” Rhys was already talking to himself as he thought and brought a hand up to his mouth in contemplation. Vaughn laughed victoriously. 

“And  _ there _ they go,” Yvette said, crossing her arms and shaking her head with a smile as Rhys brought up the holographic display on his robotic hand and the two started chattering quickly over it. “Off in their own world,” she added.

“Well, that was unexpectedly easy,” Sasha said, looking at the other two ladies.

“We should probably let the boys do their thing; we aren’t going to be able to get anything else out of them for a while anyway now that they’re gone into nerd mode,” Yvette said and led the sisters out of the office. “We can go grab a bite to eat while the boys play with their toys.”

 

 

Rhys and Vaughn worked well into the evening. Every so often Vaughn would have to run off to get supplies or tools, but after the initial integration, for the most part they had what they needed and eagerly tinkered away. It was easy to fall back into the well oiled and earned rhythm they had once, each of them seamlessly exchanging parts, tools, and ideas.

But the longer it took, the more Rhys’ mind wandered, the more incessantly his marks tingled, and the stiffer his neck got. He rubbed at the skin beneath his collar and blinked blearily, the blue holo display flickering before him and artifacting. He shook his head and swallowed, refocusing.

Rhys adjusted the targeting software almost unconsciously while Vaughn finished piecing the glasses back together, looking down at them fondly. Rhys’ eyes flitted to the sniper rifle on the table briefly before darting back to program before him again; the movement repeated several times before he realized the software had frozen, still in his holographic display.

_ You won't even touch a gun and look at you _ .

His shoulders tensed, rolling forward a bit as his breath caught in his chest and he trained his eyes solely on the display. The memory of the nightmare came unbidden but he pushed it away, squinting at the code instead.

But he couldn't seem to stop reading the same line. Over and over. He could almost hear the clang of the sniper rifle fire pinging against the metal above him and he winced involuntarily. He shook his head and gulped, though his mouth was dry.

“When did you learn how to shoot?” Rhys asked suddenly, looking over at Vaughn, who hesitated for a moment, freezing and looking around the room before resuming his machinations.

“Well, you can only do so much with a laser pointer,” Vaughn said idly. “And there have been these bandits creeping closer and staking out sniping positions lately so we've been trying to fight fire with fire, you know?”

“Ah… Yea… We ran into some of them, I think,” Rhys said and Vaughn looked at him then. 

“Wait, did you come through Paul’s Canyon?” Vaughn asked and Rhys thought about it for a second, trying to remember the name on the map.

“I… think so?”

“How did you get  _ through _ ? They’ve been ambushing all the convoys in there for weeks; I've had to reroute all the trade caravans.”

“I… teleported up,” Rhys replied. “Got the bandits in the air so the girls could shoot them,” he said.

“Woah,” Vaughn breathed, a grin spreading across his face. “That is  _ awesome _ ,” he said and Rhys rubbed his forehead.

“I guess,” Rhys said. “It was kinda… It didn't feel  _ entirely…  _ awesome,” he added and Vaughn looked at him quizzically. Rhys sighed. 

_ You still think I'm the monster here _ .

“I mean, part of it did - sure - the part that went according to plan,” Rhys said. “It was so nice for once to… to actually use this random… bullshit,” he said with a sigh, looking at the violet cracks in his open palm. He even smiled then for a moment, remembering. “I thought for a minute there I was finally figuring it out.” 

“The looks on those bandits’ faces when they were floating in mid-air  _ were  _ pretty funny - they were so surprised,” he said with a despairing chuckle, his own startled, exuberant laugh coming back to him. “But…” His foot twitched unconsciously as he glanced down at his boots.

_ You are way better at killing than I am. _

“I just… What if I can’t control this; what if I’m not meant to?” he wondered aloud. “If I’m… I’m some kind of… I’m not a monster, right?” he finally asked and flinched as soon as he heard himself say it out loud. “That... sounded a lot less stupid in my head…” He clenched his robotic first, the display disappearing, as Vaughn looked at him harder in surprise.

“What? Why would you even - no. No, you're not,” Vaughn supplied immediately. “Why would you even ask that, Rhys?”

Rhys brought up his other clenched fist and turned it over, studying the seething marks. Vaughn didn't miss the gesture.

“Is it the Vault Guardian thing?” he asked and Rhys shook his head yes and no.

“I mean, that’s kind of what it is right? Vault Guardian… monster… same thing.” 

“You’re still you, Rhys,” Vaughn said and Rhys squinted, shaking his head.

“But I kind of… I killed a guy… when I teleported,” he explained.

“Well, that was kind of the plan wasn't it?”

“No - yes - I mean - yes, but I didn't mean to  _ that _ way,” Rhys said, running a hand through his hair. “I landed on him and he kind of just… turned to mush… under me. It was… really messy…” he said with a sharp exhale through his nose. 

“I have to be able to control - this - or I’m just gonna…” Rhys stopped, shaking his head fervently, staring at a spot on the wall. “What if I miss again and hurt you? Or Fiona, or  _ Sasha _ ?” he asked, looking back up at Vaughn. 

“I just… I keep… messing things up,” he confessed. “That thing with the bandit, the whole Vasquez deal to begin with…  _ Helios,”  _ he said, his voice picking up volume. “People - hundreds of people - keep  _ dying _ all around me and I didn’t even - I’m a walking ball of death and destruction and -  maybe Lilith was right in the first place,” he breathed.

“What?”

“I did… this,” Rhys waved at the room around them before scrunching up his face and shaking his head. “Well, not  _ this _ \- you did this - you cleaned it up - you made it work, but I? I destroyed it. I. Brought down Helios. I ki… Killed. All those people. That’s pretty… pretty monstrous, right?”

“Rhys,” Vaughn started, setting the glasses aside and drawing closer. “Yea, a lot of people died but you  _ had _ to do it and you know that. Everybody knows that. You're a hero, Rhys.” Rhys’ gaze slew back to Vaughn from where it’d drifted with startling sharpness.

“Handsome Jack was a hero,” he said with a pained scowl, and Vaughn was taken aback for a moment before he leaned forward again and shook his head, a stern frown on his face.

“No, Rhys, no he wasn't.”

“Yes, yes he was,” Rhys replied insistently, his face screwing up further. “He was  _ my _ hero; I wanted to  _ be _ him, become him, and then - and then - what does that make me?”

“You're not Jack, Rhys,” Vaughn insisted. “You rejected him in the end, remember? You destroyed him.” 

“No, I'm - but what if I'm  _ worse _ ? This Vault Guardian - Vault  _ Monster  _ \- thing… Helios… Atlas… everything… Jack at least  _ believed  _ in what he was doing; I-I don’t even  _ know  _ what I’m doing.”

“Rhys…” Vaughn said, searching his face and for once, it was almost as if seeing him in a new light. “We're going to fix this. We'll find a way. But you have to believe me: believe in  _ yourself _ . Isn’t that what you’re always telling me?” he asked. “You're  _ not _ a monster.” He stood and put an arm around Rhys’ shoulders. “Okay?” he asked and shook his friend’s shoulders before continuing. 

“Would a monster have refused to sell out his friends in order to get his job back?” Vaughn asked. “Would a monster have trusted his friends with the truth - even when telling them was scary as shit? Would a monster have stood between me and that creepy butcher guy when we first landed on Pandora? Put up with Yvette’s mooching, spared your psycho ex even after she tried to kill you, hell, given pretty much  _ everybody  _ the benefit of the doubt?” 

Rhys looked at the ground between his robotic and violet scarred hands, before closing his eyes, taking a deep breath, straightening where he sat. Vaughn’s arm dropped and he took a step back with a reassuring smile. Rhys put a hand to his forehead with a groan and opened his eyes.

“Yea… Yea,” he said. “It's just… It's goddamn Jack,” he spat and thankfully didn't notice the way Vaughn’s eyes momentarily widened. “I keep having nightmares and it's like - it's like he never left.”

“He didn't just leave Rhys; you  _ beat _ him,” Vaughn insisted.

“Maybe I didn't,” Rhys said. “Not really… even just a memory, my imagination, whatever it is… It's driving me nuts, Vaughn.”

“Rhys, he’s not real,” Vaughn pressed. “He’s dead and gone and this - whatever it is - memories, nightmares… you can overcome it. You can do this, Rhys,” Vaughn said, sitting before him.

“I can’t even believe some of the stuff you  _ have  _ done. It’s like there’s  _ nothing  _ you can’t do if you put your mind to it. You and I know that better than anybody,” he said and Rhys leaned forward, pinching the bridge of his nose with his metal hand. He was startled by the glowing violet reflection in the palm of his hand as he drew it back, the purple fissures gleaming like neon lights, looking back at him in the chrome. The reflection of his golden eye glowed just as bright as the aperture in his palm.

_ Try looking in the mirror! _

His reflection grimaced, a white flare erupting from his port and trailing down the violet tracks briefly before disappearing. He shook his head and ran the chrome hand through his hair. 

“Right,” Rhys said with a sigh. “Sorry, it's just been a hell of a couple days,” he continued. “Months… whatever.”  

“And having Handsome Jack nightmares probably hasn't helped, huh,” Vaughn pointed out.

“Nope,” Rhys agreed and after a minute he groaned bitterly: “I’d much rather dream about  _ Sasha _ .” Vaughn laughed.

“I bet,” Vaughn replied. “How's that going by the way?” he asked and Rhys was thankful for the redirection.

“Powers, nightmares of psychopathic ghosts of Hyperion Past, and Fiona’s unintentional, or intentional… I don’t even know anymore, cockblocking aside, it's… promising, I think,” Rhys reported and Vaughn snorted.

“Well,  _ Sasha  _ certainly doesn't think you're a monster,” Vaughn remarked, making Rhys cough up a small hollow laugh. 

“She  _ is _ from  _ Pandora _ though; she might not be the best judge,” Rhys said dryly. “Maybe monsters are her thing.” 

“So you’re all set either way!” Vaughn proclaimed and it was Rhys’ turn to snort, the laughter coming easier.

“Oh my God, that’s a - it probably shouldn’t be, but that’s an oddly comforting thought,” he said through the laughter. He laughed so hard his sides hurt and his eyes started to sting, while Vaughn chuckled along with him. “Thanks, bro.” 

“No problem, bro,” Vaughn replied as Rhys wiped his eyes.

“Okay, meltdown averted,” Rhys said, shaking his head with a last nervous laugh and stretching into the chair. He brought his cybernetic hand back up again, reopening the holographic interface. “Back to making you some badass glasses.” 

“Sweet,” Vaughn said, perking up. “I’ll get us some more fuel,” he added, standing and scooping up the two empty coffee mugs on the large table. He paused in the doorway however, looking back at Rhys. “Okay?” he asked, drawing Rhys’ attention again. Rhys returned his friend’s look, a tired smile spreading across his face again. 

“Okay.”  
  
  


They spent a couple more days preparing, Vaughn mostly squaring things away with his subordinates after finishing the glasses, while Rhys, Fiona, and Sasha restocked their supplies and planned their next moves. On the fourth day they waved goodbye to the crowd that had assembled to see them off with an unimpressed Yvette at the forefront. They climbed into the vehicle: Sasha at the wheel with Rhys beside her in the passenger seat, and Fiona and Vaughn occupying the back two seats behind the mounted gun. 

“Don’t get into too much trouble, kids,” Yvette called. 

“Trouble? Us?” Rhys replied and Sasha laughed. 

“Oh, we will,” Fiona said with a wink.

“Don’t forget to send August the ledger with the-” Vaughn called, turning around in his seat as they started to pull away. 

“Don’t worry,” Yvette yelled back and Fiona pulled him down into his seat. 

“She’ll be fine,” Rhys consoled as they picked up speed, the crowd shrinking behind them. “This is Yvette we’re talking about. She’ll probably have the place trained to tap dance on command or serve her a six course meal for breakfast or something by the next time we get back.” 

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Vaughn replied.

“Tap dancing?” Fiona asked. 

“What? No, I meant - nevermind,” Vaughn said. “It’ll be fine; it’ll be good; this is fine,” he said, almost in a chant to himself. 

“Chill, bro,” Rhys said. “You said yourself last night that  you needed to get out more,” he added. “Everything’s taken care of and they know how to contact you now you’ve got your glasses back.”

“That’s true,” Vaughn agreed with an appreciative nod as he reached up to adjust the glasses once again on his face. His hand dropped to stroke his beard after that. “Okay. Okay. This is fine.” 

“It  _ is _ ,” Rhys said and leaned forward towards the center console, toying with a knob there.

“What are you - did you-” Sasha started but was interrupted by a blast of loud music. 

“You’re kidding me!” Fiona said, leaning forward in her seat. 

“Ye-up,” Rhys said, leaning back in his seat, putting one foot and then the other, up on the dash. 

“We modified the car a little,” Vaughn admitted. 

“You couldn’t have added something useful?” Sasha asked. “Like a roof? Armor? Some more guns?” 

“So needy,” Rhys said lightly, over the music and Sasha arched an eyebrow. 

“Really?” she asked in disbelief, leveling him with a warning glare, and he burst out into a fit of laughter.

“Sorry-sorry-couldn’t-resist,” he stuttered. “Joke-bad-joke. Please don’t dump me.”

“Oh wait, are we actually dating now? Because we’d have to be dating first for me to dump you,” she pointed out and Rhys tilted his head, suddenly still.   

“Oh, uh, huh, yea, I guess I did just kind of imply that, didn’t I?” he said, laughing awkwardly. 

“Oh my god,” Fiona moaned as she slumped in her seat. “I take it back! I take it all back!” she cried and Vaughn patted her on the arm. 

“Alright, so we’re dating,” Sasha said as they turned around the bend in the road, cresting up out of the crater.

“Please don’t say that just so you can dump me,” Rhys said. 

“I’m not,” Sasha said, smiling with both hands on the steering wheel. 

“Yea?” Rhys asked tentatively. 

“Yea,” Sasha replied, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye as she drove. 

“Huh,” Rhys breathed, “cool.” He relaxed back into the bucket seat. Fiona continued to groan in the backseat, beside Vaughn, who had gotten distracted tweaking his glasses’ settings to notice her discomfort anymore.  Sasha let out a single laugh as she accelerated on the wide open barren plains of Pandora.   
  
  


Days, towns, several errands, and hundreds of miles later: the four members of the newly minted team of Vault Hunters were tearing their way through yet another bandit camp. Rhys had just sent another psycho flying with a wave of his stun baton when a door high above them slammed open. With a jerk of his hand, Rhys bade his floating turret to fly behind one of the buildings.

“Cluster!” Vaughn yelled as he slowly swept his sniper rifle up to the platform in question. 

“How many?” Rhys called as he ducked behind a dumpster. 

“A lot!” Fiona quipped from where she took cover behind a shack. 

“Five,” Vaughn reported. “Three psychos, one badass, one nomad.”

“If you flush them out I can flank them and drive them into the open down the stairs,” Sasha called from above them, already several levels up.

“Great, hahh, huah,” Rhys muttered as he leaned back against the dumpster, letting his head hit the metal for a moment. He recalled his turret, commanding it to retreat to a safe distance before he proceeded. 

With a deep breath he brought his hand up and pressed the button to disable his collar. For a few seconds, he did nothing but breathe, inhaling deeply through his nose, closing his eyes, and exhaling through his mouth, as he felt the prickling fuzziness creep closer.

Lightning sparked at his temple and he flinched, but barely, breathing deep.

“Rhys?” Sasha called down and he frowned, his face contorting, and opening his eyes, the edges of his vision tinged violet. 

“Give him a minute!” Vaughn replied for him, spotting from his position near the vehicle. As the violet fog crawled farther across his vision, crystallizing and obscuring, Rhys stood and turned around with a steady exhale, gazing over the dumpster at the highest level. 

A thousand tendrils of electric wind and light whipped at his face, threatening to tear him apart but he ignored them, focusing on the one. The one lashing at him from the highest level of the bandit camp in front of him. The nomad glaring at him from behind its shield; the badass brandishing his gun with a cackling laugh.

It was close. So close. The metal grille flooring underneath between the bandits came into focus in the violet flashing haze.

And he had it. 

With a sharp gasp he was suddenly falling, blinking rapidly in the bright purple flash of light as the fog parted. And then it cleared, and he was falling from a great height, drawn towards the topmost platform, which now was below him. 

He hit the scaffolding side long and it crumpled beneath him. The group of enemies launched into the sky, and stayed there, rotating slightly as violet lightning bolts darted and jolted from one of them to the other. Grabbing hold of the mangled metal beneath him, Rhys took a deep breath and held it, staring at his hand. The bright white marks hissed and steamed barely audible above the cacophony of the roaring whispers and the cries around him. 

The rapid fire of Sasha’s SMG tore through the air, punctuated every so often by Fiona’s pistol, only to be eclipsed even further by the echoing CRACK of Vaughn’s sniper rifle.

The violet haze roiled at the edges of his vision as it darkened, motes of light flickering and floating before him. As the shots came farther apart he had to breathe and he let go of the singular thread he’d been concentrating on, his fingers splaying wide over the distorted metal. He gasped for breath as he blinked away the purple fog, pushing away the invisible claws; thuds all around him brought him back to reality and he shook his head with a shudder and a wheeze as he reared back. 

Frantically looking around him, he was greeted by nothing but the still forms of the assorted bandits surrounding him, swiftly dispatched by his teammates. With another relieved gasp, he fell forward.

Rhys panted in a collapsed heap, the air still crackling around as the energy of the teleportation and stasis wore off. The violet marks throbbed on his side and face as he focused on the metal in front of him again before it started to shift beneath him, threatening him with the visions of countless other possibilities and places pulling him away. 

Something thrust itself into his central field of view, startling him out of his stupor, and the ground solidified, lurching to a halt beneath him. 

A hand.

A hand attached to a woman. A woman who made his heart flutter harder, more insistently than the infinite hooks and tethers that made his heart feel like it was going to rupture and give out. 

“Hey,” Sasha said, her hand extended. “Good job there, Hyperion” she complimented with a slight quirk of her lips and he felt his mouth stretch into a grin. 

“Former Hyperion; I thought we were past this,” he corrected as he accepted her hand.

“That's right,” she agreed. “Atlas.” She smirked, and he let her pull him to his feet. 

“You’re getting better at this,” Fiona commented as she ascended the last of the steps. Rhys quickly let go of Sasha’s hand as she neared, making her look at him with an amused shake of her head. Fiona noticed and rolled her entire head along with her eyes and stuck out her tongue. “Eugh,” she said, but the smile never left her face. Rhys rubbed the back of his neck, before pressing the button on his collar, while Sasha briskly walked away to pick up some loot off one of the fallen bandits. 

Fiona brushed past him to inspect a chest along the wall in front of them, and he numbly turned in the direction she went. He watched as the sisters scavenged; his eyes drifted back to Vaughn who nimbly hopped up the final steps to join them. Vaughn noticed his stare and shot him a thumbs up and a smile, the rifle slung at his back. 

Rhys returned the gesture despite the tingling at the base of his skull, the collar at his throat, and the searing violet scars in his skin. 

“Yea,” he muttered belatedly. His gaze returned to rest upon the younger of the sisters as she held up two guns in contemplation. She saw him staring again and she shook her head with a laugh before winking and going back to her appraisal. He let out a small laugh too and flexed his left hand. 

“I guess I am,” he stated and went to follow his friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all, folks! 
> 
> Just kidding! I'm sorry - I'm sorry. I hope you don't hate me. This story was only ever meant to be the "origin" story of my version of "siren" Rhys. 
> 
> Let me let you in on a little secret though: I'm working on a sequel! Unfortunately, it's a joint sequel to this fic and my other fic _Revolver Reloaded_. Those of you who have checked that one out know that it is only one chapter so far. It's also currently in progress, so don't expect the sequel to be published before that fic is done. 
> 
> Please stay tuned for the epilogue, which will give you a hint of what's to come. 
> 
> As always, thank you so, so much for reading, commenting, giving kudos, and generally being awesome. Again, huge should out to [WindraDeadZed](http://archiveofourown.org/users/WindraDeadZed/pseuds/WindraDeadZed) for being such an amazing beta reader and all around awesome person. I've really been overwhelmed by how wonderful an experience this has been and I can't thank y'all enough. <3
> 
> And in the meantime, come see me on [tumblr](http://arkemisia.tumblr.com/)! I'm always excited to chat with fellow fans and love prompts (even though my turnaround rate is terrible)! Thanks again!
> 
> Also just in case I can't wrangle AO3's audio player into submission - please go listen to Cut Copy's song ["Nobody Lost, Nobody Found"](https://play.spotify.com/track/5eHhDh1rOxqCXHTTXtlXwK) \- consider it the ending theme. XD
> 
>   
>    
> 


	11. Epilogue

Elsewhere, in a dive bar on Pandora, an aging con artist nursed his beer and eyed the room’s other occupants. Few noticed the old man, slumped as he was he must be drunk, like the rest of the lonely patrons. But his unobscured eye was sharper than those of the most eagle eyed hunters.

Therefore, it was no surprise that he immediately identified the man in the tattered heavy cloak, hood pulled low around his head and shadowing most of his face, as soon as he walked through the door. It took the hooded man far longer to notice  _ him _ , however, and the con artist waved him down. The hooded man crossed the bar floor in harried strides, stopping at the table and pausing for a moment, his hands wary, hovering at his sides.

“Felix?” he ventured. The old con artist tipped his beer bottle in a vague salutation.

“Mister Lawrence, please, sit,” he said. With a furtive glance over his shoulders, the hooded man did just that.

“Sorry I'm late,” he said. “Had to take the long way.”

“Not to worry,” Felix said taking a sip from the bottle sloppily, causing Timothy to eye him with growing skepticism. He held his tongue, however, for the old man spoke clear enough. “The others have yet to arrive, which makes you early.”

“O-others?” Timothy repeated. “You never mentioned anything about any others,” he protested. “That - ah - that might be a problem, you see…”

“Fear not, friend,” Felix hushed. “I think you'll find the others are more understanding of your… condition, shall we say, than most Pandorans,” he added with a devious smirk. Timothy leaned back in his chair at that, sucking in a breath and going rigid.

“You could say that,” came a woman’s voice as two hands dropped onto Tim’s shoulders, making him jump. He swiveled in the chair to see the gunslinger in her cowboy hat drawing back to put her hands on her hips, just above her pistols.

“Oh, oh boy,” he breathed. “Huh-hii.” 

“Miss Kadam,” Felix said. “A pleasure.”

“How many more are we waiting on or can we get this show on the road?” she asked as she slid easily into the third chair.

“Just one,” he replied. Tim was shaking his head in confusion for a few moments before finally he managed to look back at Nisha. 

“I thought - I heard you were dead?” he asked and she scowled slightly before arching a brow and smirking. 

“I’m just too badass to die,” she stated simply and he nodded slowly. 

“Ahh, ahha,” he said. “Er-right, that’s uh - good for you,” he added before looking away from her unwavering stare and instead studying his fingernails most intently, shaking his head to himself. Felix’s gaze went back to the entryway as it opened again and he immediately sat up straighter.

“Ah, and there’s our final accomplice,” Felix said, standing up. The measured clacking of heeled boots against the wood floor told Nisha and Timothy all they needed to know, even before the singsong voice rang through the air like a bell.

“What a dreadful place,” it observed.

“Ahh, baroness, my apologies,” Felix soothed. “I'm certain you understand our need for discretion,” he said with a vague nod to the hooded Timothy, who waved lamely with his four finger gloved hand. “It is an honor to be graced with your presence, Lady Hammerlock,” Felix said with a flourish and a bow. The towering sniper came up to them then and crossed her arms. She brought one of her white gloved hands up to her elegant chin in brief contemplation as she scrutinized the older man before her.

“Well, well, a Pandoran with manners; how refreshing,” she remarked. “Don't overdo it though, darling; you'll hurt yourself.”

“Of course not, my lady,” he said and waved to the fourth chair, pulling it out for her. “Please, sit.” She eyed it with open disdain before cocking her hip and tilting her head back.

“I think I'll stand; that  _ chair _ looks positively  _ filthy _ ,” she said and he cleared his throat.

“Of course, my mistake,” Felix said as he pushed it back in, and sat back down in his own chair then. Timothy coughed into his hand and drew his hood tighter.

“Looks like you've got all the firepower you need,” he said with a forced laugh. “Certainly don't need little old me with such… incredibly… terrifying- _ terrific _ … hunters…” he stammered and went to stand. “I'll just be on my way-”

“Come now, Mister Lawrence,” Felix chided. “Are you interested in the money or not?” he asked and Timothy settled back in the chair uncomfortably.

“You still haven’t told us what the job  _ is _ . We’re here now,” Nisha said, her gaze lingering for a moment on Timothy, who gulped when she finally shifted her attention back to Felix. “You going to tell us about the job or not?” she asked and the blue clad sniper arched a fine eyebrow at the con artist.

“Yes, I haven’t got all day, darling. Places to go, people to kill,” Aurelia said. “I was under the impression there was going to be excitement and this place seems about as dull as a charity banquet,” she despaired.  “Without the added benefit of picking who to poison this time.” 

“Never to worry, my dear lady,” Felix said. “This job is sure to be plenty dangerous,” he explained and the baroness smiled eagerly, her eyes lighting up. He in turn trained his one eyed glare on the fidgeting man in front of him, who went still under the older man’s heavy gaze, waiting. “And more lucrative than you could imagine,” he added before looking to the gunslinger. 

“Oh, that’s adorable!” Aurelia laughed, drawing their attention back to her. “But I highly doubt  _ that _ ,” she said with a smile and he agreed with a nod.

“Maybe not for you, Lady Hammerlock, but  _ that’s  _ not why  _ you’re  _ here,” he said. 

“Indeed,” she said, dropping her hand and her chin. “And it’s Lady Aurelia, by the by, sweetheart; Lady Hammerlock is my mother. Only  _ dead men  _ call  _ me _ , Lady Hammerlock.” 

“Of  _ course _ , Lady Aurelia,” he said, his nostrils flaring. He looked to Nisha, who simply stared at him expectantly from under the brim of her hat, and then to Timothy, who looked up a bit, the distinctive chin and small patch of facial hair peeking out from the shadow cast over his face by the hood. 

Felix set the beer bottle down with a soft clunk and a sigh, before bringing his piercing gaze back up again.

“What have you heard about the Vault of the Traveler?”  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To be continued in: _Unnatural Selection_.
> 
> Also please check out the ongoing sister-story _Revolver Reloaded_ , which, as mentioned before, also ties into _Unnatural Selection_. Therefore _Unnatural Selection_ will not be posted until _Revolver Reloaded_ is completed.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading! I hope you've enjoyed it!


End file.
